For me it has always been the wisdom and experience of those that have ventured before me. Medical professionals, psychologists and the like can claim that they "understand" etc, etc, but unless you have lived the lives that most of us have lived, I don't think that any of these people can really, truly understand.
Throughout life suffering form Mental Illness brought about by my GID, friends (and I use that term loosely) and family have slowly disappeared into the ether. Like many with GID, I find sense and comfort in knowing that I am not alone and Susan's has opened my eyes to this over the years.
Many people will tell you that it is imperative to have a support network to surround yourself with as you deal with GID and this is very true. Unfortunately, a lot of us end up finding ourselves alone with the only support we can rely on being the professionals we pay to see.
For some of us, we search the internet looking for groups that we can associate with, particularly in real life but like some have mentioned, most of what you find revolves around sex orientated websites etc. Like many, I too have been unsuccessful in meeting girls that were just regular people like me.
A local community organisation used to have a dinner night for us girls once a week. For me it was around a two hour drive to get there and then another two hours to drive back. At first I was excited to finally be part of a group of girls in real life but as time went on, this social evening of regular girls, slow became hijacked by girls who's whole life revolved around sex, sex work and drug use and one by one the regular girls were scared away because of the behaviour of others at these functions. Eventually the evenings were closed down because of the lack of attendance and the behaviour of the few that were still attending.
Isolation is the hardest thing to deal with when trying to live with GID and although I continue to search for real life contact with girls like me, coming to Susan's has given me strength and made the feelings of isolation more bearable.
If it wasn't for Susan's, I would have given up a long time ago.
