I get depressed thinking about things like "What if they're right? What if I'm just insane?". Does it ever happen to you that you question your sanity after reading or hearing certain attacks from certain people? I don't believe in this bigoted bs, but sometimes my self-esteem gets so low I give up and get these negative thoughts. It feels like I'm not being taken seriously, and that I'm an alien on this earth, and that I'm just crazy.
I have studied psychosis, schizophrenia, delusions, etc., and also BDD and eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia (I mention them because bigots compare us to anorexic people too), and I read a lot about all of this so I have enough knowledge about psychiatric conditions, and I do know gender dysphoria isn't a delusion and it can't be compared to thinking you're the Queen Elizabeth. I'm lazy and sleepy now, but I'll write more later. Rationally, I know I'm not mentally ill because of my dysphoric feelings (I have disorders like anxiety and depression though, but that's another story), I know it's not what the bigots say. Still, I guess sometimes I just feel so tired and emotionally weak that I question my own sanity (when it comes to gender dysphoria). This obviously makes me feel even worse, and fuels my depressive thoughts, which leads me to think that if it weren't for heavy discrimination, we'd live a much happier life and we could come out and transition without fearing the loss of friends and family and other negative social consequences.
But then, the negative part of me keeps telling me I'm just mentally ill and worthless. I guess I should "thank" hateful people for that :-\
It's hard to prove this one way or another and it was even more difficult when I transitioned because we didn't know as much about ->-bleeped-<- as we do now. One thing I can tell you is that the treatment works. I have a 33 year track record of not feeling uncomfortable with my body and I am one of many. The doctors will eliminate or treat anyone who shows signs of mental illness before starting HRT so if you have made it that far, you are transgender, you show no signs of other treatable conditions and you have a doctors stamp of approval.
You're better than those who are trying to tear you down. They are ignorant, and this ignorance often turns into fear and hatred. It's one of those "easier said than done" things, but it holds true for anyone that you can't let other people's baggage weigh you down. You aren't worthless, and don't let anyone make you think you are.
And gender dysphoria is most certainly not a mental disorder. Those who compare it to things like anorexia nervosa do not stop to consider that if someone is allowed to "be" anorexic then they will suffer, cause irrepable damage to their body, and it could kill them. People who say it is a body dysmorphic disorder do not realize that those with that condition typically worsen when they get any sort of plastic surgery or other body modifications. And of course it's not delusional thinking as there is no real way to define gender in any consistent manner except through ones own sense of gender identity.
It does get a bit tricky and complicated as gender dysphoria does cause distress, depression, anxiety, social impairment, and other things that do typically indicate a disorder, but with medical treatment and transitioning transsexuals mostly improve in their well-being, functioning, and quality of life. Personally, I think "syndrome" is more accurate to describe it than "disorder," given there often is things such as depression and anxiety caused over dysphoria. But even that may not be accurate, especially as society evolves and becomes more tolerant and accepting, and more transsexuals are allowed to transition at a younger age, which theoretically should dramatically reduce the negative things like depression.
Probably it's best to just use the word "transsexual," as that is what it is. Really, it doesn't even need words such as "disorder" or "syndrome" attached to it, because it really is nothing more than a natural expression and identity that falls outside of our societies black-and-white gender binary, which is the thing that is actually screwed up.
Only those spectacularly ignorant of current medical thinking would say it is a mental illness - Experst in the field stopped considering it that way some twenty years ago, witness the fact that it was removed from the disorders listed in the latest DSM.
As a medical student I have it on fairly good authority that it will similarly be removed from the next edition of the ICD. Once it is listed as a mental disorder in niether of those it simply cannot be called a mental illness, and even now while it is still technically so listed in ICD, because that has not been updated for some years, anyone who knows about the condition will admit that it is misclassified there.
Being trans isn't a mental illness; it's just the result of having the wrong hormone levels present during the time your prenatal development was taking place.
https://www.quora.com/What-causes-a-person-to-be-transgender/answer/Hugh-Easton-1
Quote from: Dena on May 23, 2016, 11:18:53 PM
It's hard to prove this one way or another and it was even more difficult when I transitioned because we didn't know as much about ->-bleeped-<- as we do now. One thing I can tell you is that the treatment works. I have a 33 year track record of not feeling uncomfortable with my body and I am one of many. The doctors will eliminate or treat anyone who shows signs of mental illness before starting HRT so if you have made it that far, you are transgender, you show no signs of other treatable conditions and you have a doctors stamp of approval.
I'm pre-everything but everytime I look at my hairy legs and arms (I'm happy about those) I feel a sense of masculinity and it makes me feel better. Everytime I see muscles grow, even just a little bit (I go to the gym) I feel better and more manly. Thinking how hrt adds more body hair (and thicker) and how it adds more muscular mass and can help with a more masculine body shape....and thinking all of this will be possible for me thanks to medicine....it makes me happy. I have been feeling this way ever since I was a small child. I knew I was a girl on the outside only.
But this is not enough cause pre T I can't have facial hair and more muscular mass and other things.....so I look in the mirror and imagine myself with some hair on my face...and a bigger body...and it makes me feel good. This is how I know 100% I need transition. I don't just desire it....I need it.
I don't say all of my anxiety and depression issues will be cured after transition. I know they won't. But the depression and anxiety that dysphoria gives me will fade away, or at least it won't be so damaging and strong. Those specific negative thoughts dysphoria give me can only be cured or made weaker with transition.
I take antidepressants, mood stabilizers, I even took an antipsychotic for a while and they certainly helped with mood swings and depression....but they obviously can't help with dysphoria.
As a mentally ill trans guy I can say this out loud. No amount of psych drugs can remove gender dysphoria. Delusions respond to antipsychotic drugs. Depressionand anxiety respond to antidepressants. And transsexualism is an entirely different thing because it only responds to transition.
No amount of psychotherapy or antidepressants causes transsexualism to "go away". I know the medical community knows this and I experienced it on myself, so it's direct, firsthand experience, I didn't just read it somewhere.
This. My rational mind knows all of this...but sometimes criticism affects me to the point of making me think I must be insane.
The difference between being trans and being anorexic is like the difference between being anorexic, or wanting to loose a few extra pounds so that you can run a 5k. The key is that transition is almost always better for mental well being. If people with eating disorders were indulged, they would die. Trans people who transition (hopefully) flourish, those who don't transition fare worse. One of the main reasons that medical systems like the NHS (UK) treat trans people by helping us transition is that no other therapy works.
It's ignorant and insulting to people with mental illness for people to compare them to transgender people, because they're using someone else's experiences and suffering as a tool of oppression, and they're simplifying a range of diverse and complicated problems and people into one lump. It's hard to not let them get to you, but as it seems like you've experienced things that others haven't, trust yourself over them.
Quote from: jossam on May 23, 2016, 10:56:30 PM
I get depressed thinking about things like "What if they're right? What if I'm just insane?".
To take a different angle, so what if that were all true? It doesn't mean you can't be happy and live a full life.
Admittedly it not easy, but it is possible as so many have shown.
Think of a mental illness as a disfunction of brain operations (although there could also be brain damage, as they've now found in schizophrenia, that it's a degenerative disorder akin to dementia). Whereas the dysphoria in transsexualism is the result of brain structure. And by structure we mean quantifiable stuff like where your white matter is, not meta structures like the order of your thoughts.
Having dysphoria can quickly lead to having disordered thoughts for sure. Dysphoria can lead to dysmorphia very easily.
But I hope that distinction makes sense ... mental illness is like putting the wrong octane gasoline in your engine, whereas being trans is like having a different engine than you'd expect for the body of the car.
I'd like to take an opportunity to question the stigma against mental illness.
Consider people who hear voices. There's growing evidence that such people are mostly just fine... they just hear voices. If they engage those voices in a constructive way, they can actually reduce the stress that the voices cause. The traditional approach is to medicate them into a stupor, of course. People who can be quite functional in society, if we don't abuse them and hide them away. It's depressing to think about how many people are still being treated that way to this day.
Personally, I accept that I may be neurally divergent. That's okay, and my gender may be tied up in that. I think my intelligence is tied up in that too, and my brain is my moneymaker.
For people who hear voices; for transgender individuals. When society tells us repeatedly that our senses are lying to us, but the sensations and feelings don't go away, THAT can drive us up the wall. An attitude of normalcy and acceptance makes the problems go away.
I feel like the idea of a mental illness being different from a physical illness is crap. If it was all in your head instead of physically in your brain, would medication ever work? I don't think so. Sure you can reprogram the brain, but does that make its processes any less physical? You can reprogram a computer, but it's still physical hardware running all that. I feel like a "mental" illness, like magic, is just something we don't understand at the time, but entirely physical.
Quote from: Rejennyrated on May 24, 2016, 02:15:41 AM
As a medical student I have it on fairly good authority that it will similarly be removed from the next edition of the ICD..
I am now wondering what gets listed as the dx for billing, insurance, etc. I admit I'm amused my official diagnoses are testicular hypofunction and gyecomastia, but what are they going to do to justify treatment?
personally I don't mind being insane as long as I have freedom.
It irks me to be thought of as insane by people who have done far less in and with their life than I have. If this is insanity then insanity is a good thing.
Sapere Aude
Trans people are not insane. It's not a mental illness. Both the brain and the body functional properly. But the gender and the sex don't match, therefor some transgender people experience gender dysphoria. Most trans people works properly like cis people. Goes to school or work and does "normal" everyday things like anybody else. If we look away from the transistion (and perhaps parts of the childhood where people urge you to live the opposite gender), most parts of a transgender person's lives are very similar to cis peoples'. The main difference between a transgender and a cis person is a cis person's sex and gender match. A transgender person's sex and gender don't match. Some trans people have gender dysphoria, depression and anxiety. Not because they are ill, but because it's difficult for many of them coping how their mind and their somatic body don't match. If a healthy cis person suddenly wake up as the opposite sex, he or she might also experience challenges like that. A situation that happening do affect a human being's thoughts about life, the mood and how he/she would cope the situation no matter the person is 110% healthy or mental ill.
I don't know if this is helpful, but:
To say something is "a mental illness" (equivalently: insane, crazy, etc.) is really just a moral judgement. They could just as well say it's "icky" or "weird," except that calling it a "mental illness" makes it seem like it's an objective fact instead of a matter of taste and that calling someone "mentally ill" is somehow kind rather than dismissive. It's like saying something is a sin. It's really a tool of social policing. (If we're going to be labeling things mental illnesses, I think liking avocados should be classified as a mental illness. I mean, guacamole??? Just eeww!!)
Now, there may be good reasons for saying that a particular condition is something that a person shouldn't have. But the mere fact that people call it a "mental illness" isn't one of them.
Once you are forced to justify why being trans is something you shouldn't be, you come up with two main reasons. (Three, if you're allowing "because it's icky!" as a reason.)
1. Society treats you like <insert NSFW term>, and after a while, you internalize that. Rather like being black, you know? Is being black a "mental illness"? Or just an excuse society uses to behave very badly?
2. The disagreement between what your body is like and what your mind wants it to be causes you pain. Rather like having cancer, you know? Your body wants you dead, your mind wants to stay alive. So which do we believe has to change? The body? Or the mind?
Quote from: Deborah on May 26, 2016, 11:00:21 AM
It irks me to be thought of as insane by people who have done far less in and with their life than I have. If this is insanity then insanity is a good thing.
Sapere Aude
I gather we have reasonably similar opinions on the group most associated with the mental illness claim. Knowing exactly which skeletons that group has in its closet goes a long way toward discounting their credibility.
You can tell that a human mind is transgender by looking on an MRI and that is even before hormone treatment.
We have a physiological issue, not mental. Our minds are just wired this way.
Lots of studies out there on this. Google it should you have doubt.
Quote from: Asche on May 28, 2016, 08:40:44 AM
The disagreement between what your body is like and what your mind wants it to be causes you pain. Rather like having cancer, you know? Your body wants you dead, your mind wants to stay alive. So which do we believe has to change? The body? Or the mind?
Slightly off topic, but this reminded me of a conversation with my mom the other day. My mom (again) nagged me about not being feminine, so I told her my chest will be flat one day. She started flipping out about how mental that was, so I told her if I had cancer she wouldn't be protesting. She was annoyed, but shut her up for a while after that. I'm going to have your remember your quote for the future. :laugh:
----
Back on topic now though.
Unless people live the life you have and experienced what you have experienced to the same extent, people won't 100% understand no matter how hard they try to. My mom still thinks that my dysphoria is because of my (past) eating disorder which is
of course because of the anxiety I've had since I was five. Whatever I say about anything gets blamed on my anxiety, not taken for what it really is or even considered as a separate problem causing my anxiety to become worse. Not even my anxiety gets taken seriously most of the time.
I'm starting to think people believe what they want to believe because they don't understand and it is easier for them. And when someone keeps insisting that what they are saying is true, people still don't understand so they become angry.
I'm a hypocrite in the sense that I've thought the same things you've thought when I'm in a depressive/panic attack state. Basically, believe in you and believe you know what is best for you. Chances are if someone is putting you down for one thing, they would just find something else if that first thing didn't exist. In the end you are the one who has to live your life, the rest of the crap people can thrive in their miserable drama elsewhere.
Quote from: AnonyMs on May 24, 2016, 10:33:42 AM
To take a different angle, so what if that were all true? It doesn't mean you can't be happy and live a full life.
Admittedly it not easy, but it is possible as so many have shown.
Personally, I take a similar "so what" approach. :)
Quote from: Asche on May 28, 2016, 08:40:44 AM
To say something is "a mental illness" (equivalently: insane, crazy, etc.) is really just a moral judgement. They could just as well say it's "icky" or "weird," except that calling it a "mental illness" makes it seem like it's an objective fact instead of a matter of taste and that calling someone "mentally ill" is somehow kind rather than dismissive. It's like saying something is a sin. It's really a tool of social policing. (If we're going to be labeling things mental illnesses, I think liking avocados should be classified as a mental illness. I mean, guacamole??? Just eeww!!)
Mental illness is rapidly becoming a useless term due to exactly the phenomenon you describe. It's used as a pejorative, often by people who don't realize they're using it that way. On the other side you have the fact that "mental illness" started as a neutral term to describe purely psychiatric conditions and now we're finding out there's nothing purely psychiatric about any of them! Schizophrenia? Degenerative genetic brain disorder. Mood disorders? Chemical imbalances (although they often yield to non-chemical treatments, which keeps them well in the psych terrain). Autism spectrum disorders? Neurological fetal development disorder. Even personality disorders (which mostly don't yield to psychiatric methods at all--so psychs want to boot them out of the disorder handbook as untreatable personality traits) often have heritable components (and sometimes are even caused by traumatic brain injuries--psychological? hardly). You just go down the list, and it's complete anarchy, turns out what belonged to "the soul" really belongs to "the body". So even psychs don't know what to call "mental illness" any more.
And that's not even getting into argument about what's a disease state and what's normal human life processes. Basically, almost all humans are capable of getting depressed and there may be good evolutionary reasons for depression response. So what's illness and what's normal coping? Or, in society, we think people who have psychotic episodes are "ill" and "abnormal", yet most "normal" people will have a psychotic episode after being put under enough pressure, so is that "crazy" just part of the universal human experience? When is it a disease and when is it social circumstances? What has to be fought here, the crazy person with the crazy brain, or the crazy society? When 1/3 of Americans are depressed, are Americans just diseased or does our society induce depression in otherwise healthy people?
These aren't easy questions to answer.
Quote from: AnxietyDisord3r on June 03, 2016, 07:24:18 AM
When 1/3 of Americans are depressed, are Americans just diseased or does our society induce depression in otherwise healthy people?
This pretty much sums it up.
I used to think I was mentally ill. That something was wrong with my brain and how my mind worked. Since deciding to transition, I don't. Other people may be 'confused' (as some of the idiot pundits may put it) but I'm not. Confusion is now someone else's problem.
Quote from: WorkingOnThomas on June 04, 2016, 06:36:16 AM
I used to think I was mentally ill. That something was wrong with my brain and how my mind worked. Since deciding to transition, I don't. Other people may be 'confused' (as some of the idiot pundits may put it) but I'm not. Confusion is now someone else's problem.
I never thought of that consciously before; but yeah; this is how I feel. I'm much better on T (calmer; less anxious etc) and am no longer feeling 'confused'. If somebody says this is a mental illness or something that's their problem; they don't know how good I finally feel.
Quote from: Elis on June 04, 2016, 09:48:06 AM
I never thought of that consciously before; but yeah; this is how I feel. I'm much better on T (calmer; less anxious etc) and am no longer feeling 'confused'. If somebody says this is a mental illness or something that's their problem; they don't know how good I finally feel.
With me I feel like's it's less the presence of T than the knocking down of E which I feel has been gaslighting me and messing up my head since it started on me in puberty. I seriously believed that estrogen was poisoning me but also thought maybe that was a little delusional, but now I think I have hormonal depression and that's just hard cold fact.
T did change the way I respond to caffeine and certain medications, is, er, adjusting my sexuality (which is okay), and lets me build muscle which makes me feel good about myself. But I still haven't found what I think is my setpoint "normal". Maybe because I am on a low dose and I need to go up? Won't know till I see the blood titers in a couple months.
Quote from: AnxietyDisord3r on June 04, 2016, 10:26:04 AM
With me I feel like's it's less the presence of T than the knocking down of E which I feel has been gaslighting me and messing up my head since it started on me in puberty. I seriously believed that estrogen was poisoning me but also thought maybe that was a little delusional, but now I think I have hormonal depression and that's just hard cold fact.
T did change the way I respond to caffeine and certain medications, is, er, adjusting my sexuality (which is okay), and lets me build muscle which makes me feel good about myself. But I still haven't found what I think is my setpoint "normal". Maybe because I am on a low dose and I need to go up? Won't know till I see the blood titers in a couple months.
Yeah; I also think I feel good because my estrogen has finally been decreased. Pre T my dysphoria was constant; now it's a very slight buzz in the background. I haven't heard it called hormonal depression before; but that's what it felt like. It's amazing what the right hormones can do for a person and yet people still think we have a mental illness that can be cured ::)
I haven't noticed T changing the way I respond to caffeine and maybe sexuality has changed a bit. And yeah I still haven't found my setpoint either. I still don't feel 'normal' or 100 % comfortable within myself but it's getting there and is a vast improvement from feeling confused and unsure.
If it was a mental illness then it would not be possible to go through life functioning completely "normally" as a trans person, which I know is actually possible. Many trans people do go through life completely competently and normally and others are none the wiser about their trans status until they reveal it. So it is not a mental illness - things like depression and stress and anxiety caused by it are. In addition, nobody else can know how a trans person feels but the trans person. Nobody knows how anybody truly feels. The only definition for sane and insane is whether or not we are completely detached from reality.
Trans people seem to me to show the opposite of a detachment from reality. They are very focused on what is real, the real world around them, the behavior of others, the expectations of others - trans people are VERY focused on reality from what I see, and so they can't be insane either simply by means of being trans. Some may have other mental issues aside from trans, but being trans in itself is very much not a mental illness or demonstration of insanity. The feeling of "not being able to cope" with being trans or being different in general absolutely comes from society's expectations and its projection of those onto us. I know for a fact before I realized I was trans I did not have the weight of these things on me in the same degree. Once I realized that I did have this condition, the nature of it, that others had it too, and it "wasn't all in my head" or some invention of my own, the stress of those expectations suddenly materialized. So they are generated by our status in society, and by our comparing ourselves to others, and are not our own inventions.
Unfortunately in the area I live in, not only do most people still consider being transgender a mental illness but they also view it as a sin
But this is also a state that views suicidal ideation as a mental illness and then wonders why they consistently have one of the highest suicidal rates in the country
Quote from: Dena on May 23, 2016, 11:18:53 PM
It's hard to prove this one way or another and it was even more difficult when I transitioned because we didn't know as much about ->-bleeped-<- as we do now. One thing I can tell you is that the treatment works. I have a 33 year track record of not feeling uncomfortable with my body and I am one of many. The doctors will eliminate or treat anyone who shows signs of mental illness before starting HRT so if you have made it that far, you are transgender, you show no signs of other treatable conditions and you have a doctors stamp of approval.
My experience is very similar. Having attempted my own surgery at 5 years old, gone through "reparation" conversion therapy & now post op, I can categorically state that medically transitioning cured me of everything that remotely smacked of mental illness - anxiety, suicidal ideation, aggression etc ... Cured!!
I remember reading what one psychiatrist said was that in the DSM is that it isn't a mental illness for the following reason: no matter how many attempts have been made, all have failed to cure the dysphoria by NOT changing the Body. Therefore ours is a biological issue requiring physical not mental intervention. The cure is in changing the body to match the mind because all attempts to modify the mind to match the body have been cruel, unusual and failed to work. In every attempted case. :)
With kindnesses
Victoria xx
Quote from: MasterSifuVictoria on June 05, 2016, 06:10:39 AM
I remember reading what one psychiatrist said was that in the DSM is that it isn't a mental illness for the following reason: no matter how many attempts have been made, all have failed to cure the dysphoria by NOT changing the Body. Therefore ours is a biological issue requiring physical not mental intervention. The cure is in changing the body to match the mind because all attempts to modify the mind to match the body have been cruel, unusual and failed to work. In every attempted case. :)
A lot of stuff in the DSM actually requires medical intervention (sometimes a psychiatrist bearing chemicals is enough, sometimes not) although non-medical interventions can also help. Depression is a classic case where the evidence shows talk therapy (such as CBT) + chemotherapy is the safest, most effective option. [ETA: for a great number of patients. Some patients have depression that is unresponsive to this.] I would say that in some cases of GD a patient could benefit from science-based talk therapy techniques in order to cope with the dysphoria prior to, during, and sometimes post transition. I know that excessive ruminating makes dysphoria more unbearable for me, and based on others' comments online, that's not an uncommon problem. However, there are many otherwise well adjusted patients for whom HRT + corrective surgery alone resolves their condition. Which puts psychotherapy in an ancillary role for this condition. Psychotherapy helps cancer patients cope but you won't find cancer in the DSM.
Quote from: V M on June 05, 2016, 05:31:41 AM
Unfortunately in the area I live in, not only do most people still consider being transgender a mental illness but they also view it as a sin
But this is also a state that views suicidal ideation as a mental illness and then wonders why they consistently have one of the highest suicidal rates in the country
They are stuck somewhere in the 1950s, with all the attendant ills. I wish you luck.
Luckily there are a few progressive people who have helped me along quite a bit and I am very thankful, but most seem to be trapped in a modern version of the 1800's
Gotta wonder about a place who's most celebrated holiday is Pioneer Day
Quote from: V M on June 05, 2016, 05:31:41 AM
Unfortunately in the area I live in, not only do most people still consider being transgender a mental illness but they also view it as a sin
But this is also a state that views suicidal ideation as a mental illness and then wonders why they consistently have one of the highest suicidal rates in the country
On the subject of those people and mental illness:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/351347
Well, dysphoria, or feeling very anxious is the psychological effect of our condition which is biological. In that sense, our dysphoria causes metal problems, an illness. Similarly, when I experience bereavement I might get mental problems. Not insanity, but problems in functioning normally which we can classify as being ill, not feeling well. Our remedy is not taking medicines to modulate our brain, but seeking therapy and surgeries where applicable. Few people are truly mentally ill in the sense of being completely out of touch with reality, and if they are, then this has a biological cause and a chemical origin.
We're still stuck with this conundrum of semantics, logical fallacies, miscellaneous buzzwords, gender politics and stigmas, which makes it difficult to get a logical picture of the issues we're trying to explain and convey.
For what it's worth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h54jKbYRfE0