Charlotte's scratch post

[Finally Anna]

I also pay my therapist out of my own pocket. The public health system has therapists but (surprise) the waiting time is long-ish and I guess you need a diagnose to get specialized therapy. Costs about £90 a session but I don't need frequent sessions, about one/month, so the cost is not an issue in practice.

[Stottie Girl]

Well I've been contacted regards getting the DBT treatment I need which is good. The bad news is it'll likely be end of this year start of next before I can start. So I've got to continue as I am until then.

I think I'm going to need to privately appoint my therapist when the Birmingham LGBT funded ones run out in 8 weeks.

Also working to get an ADHD diagnosis and find my area caps the right to choose funding so that will also take months. So I pay £1400+ tax plus I think about £400 National insurance to be thrown on waiting lists for my gender care and mental health care. Honestly feel totally screwed by this system. I'm just a cash cow to the government.

Charlotte

Both good and bad news there Charlotte. I know exactly how you feel. I have paid into the NHS all my life and whenever I've needed it for non emergency stuff it has let me down. Their record on Mental Health is nothing short of scandalous. Gender care is bordering on abuse and victimisation. You will eventually get what you need without cost but by god they make you wait and fight for it. Anything life threatening though and they are excellent in my view.

[davina61]

Cant fault mums care after being rushed in with blue lights and the home visits are good.

[Charlotte Kitty ✅]

Honestly its just mental health and trans healthcare thats the issue, because they are all fake and dont really exist. So they'll keep me alive when i would rather be dead, but won't help me find a reason to stay alive!

[Charlotte Kitty ✅]

I can't help but think that having the psychiatric issues I do is robbing me of the joy that this journey should be giving me. This should be one of the greatest experiences of my life, yet has been watered down into a mere few flashes of excitement when I'm feeling ok. I wonder sometimes if it was always my destiny to experience only a very muted, watered down version of life? Is my purpose in life not to be happy and enjoy my life, but only to work and serve. My partner says I've made his life perfect now and never been happier. I honestly dont actually know what feeling relaxed, happy and content actually feels like. Yet somehow I'm expected to find it.

Looks like months before I'll know and will miss my whole transition from being awol.

Charlotte ❤️

[Petunia]

Hey Charlotte, you probably aren't going to like what I say, but I hope you read it anyway.

So in Australia we have our medicare system which comes out of our taxes.

Yeah, it sucks to pay more if you earn more, but I don't want to see more people dying just because I earn more than they do.

Our emergency wards are backed up beyond belief because a lot of people can't afford the payment gap to see a doctor.

Plus there are a lot of old peoole clogging up the wards because they can't look after themselves and have falls.

In my case I had an accident on the way to work when a van pulled out on me. I was doing 50kmph and the van stopped in front of my.

I flipped upside down back to front and had 12 rib fractures and a broken sternum

I'll try and shorten this.

Local hospital, aenesthic pumps into my ribs, tranferred next day to major hospital in an ambulance 80km away.

Wait for surgery.

I was encouraged to walk a few a laps of the ward if I could while I waited for an operation

I did as much as I could. It hurt like F but I did my laps. I did them 2,3,4 or more times. I did 5, 10, 15 or more laps, it hurt but so did lying down.

This was the only thing they told me I could do to help myself.

I couldn't expect the doctors and nurses to helo me if I wasn't prepared to have a crack myself.

While I was in there, another guy came in and he had had a MTB accident and his wife was complaining that they didn't know when his operation was going to be.

His wife said that you wouldn't treat a dog like that.

I asked the guy if he thought he was going to die.

He said no.

I asked, what would you think if they operated on you while someone had come in from an accident and were bleeding to death.

It's not the medical systems fault.

They can only cope with so much.

The sad thing is with mental health issues, it's really hard to process who is most in need.

And with things like drug abuse, it takes resources away from other cases.

Charlotte, life is never going to be one endless joy.

It is more like downs, a lot of dreary day to day stuff and then some up bits.

Treasure the day to day stuff, it pays for you and your partner to live.

When you are home, find at least one thing to give you joy.

Your partner, a run, a cute outfit, a nice home cooked meal.
Stop and think about that little piece of joy and then hang on to it.

Then get a selfie to remember that moment.

You do know you can lean on people here when you need to.

I sure do

[Stottie Girl]

@Petunia Yeah it is a resource problem but it is also a problem with inefficiancy, huge wastage of money, mismanagement, budget cuts, excessively fast population growth while simultaneously failing to invest in infrastructure and so on.

Mental health in the UK is always talked about, same as the terrible state of the private geriatic care system, there is huge media coverage about the need to improve it but there seems to be zero political will to do anything. Probably because we are in massive decline as a country and there just isn't the money. Mental health is perceived as an easy service to cut. But those mental health issues can cost lives either directly via suicide or indirectly because dangerous mental patients are roming the country instead of being placed in hospitals under care. It is so different to how it was just 20 years ago.

[Devlyn ✅]

Trigger warning: injury, death

We watch a UK financial advisor on YouTube. He focuses on teaching people how to avoid paying tax.

He recently got in a moped crash overseas with compound fractures on his arms (bones sticking out of his skin). The foreign hospital patched him up, but follow up care was necessary and he went to the NHS.

His "room" was a section of hallway. Call buttons, etc were installed in the walls of the hallway indicating that this was a permanent thing.

He related the story of a woman he met two beds down in the hallway; 91 year old Dorothy who had been there in the hallway for two months. Dorothy's husband had died in a different hallway a year ago.

On his next video he was straight back to teaching people how to avoid paying tax. Go figure.

[Gina P]

  Here in the states, many states give free visits to the hospital regardless of financial ability to pay. But they do not cover doctors office visits. Last time I was in the packed ER, I overheard a woman checking in, "I have heartburn and need something for it". Unfortunately every system has its flaws. 

[Charlotte Kitty ✅]

Hey Petunia,
I think the problems are similar over here to be honest, but nationally there is no shortage of money - we're one of the richest countries. Its just in a few peoples pockets. The worst thing is that everything you say about feeling better I know too well. But my mind doesn't work that way as its broken. I'm totally happy then a few seconds later wish to be dead. I also wake up wanting to be dead most days - there isn't a trigger, its a deep internal feeling. Then the triggers hit me bad when they do come. Most people might get envious of someone and it upsets them a bit. For me within seconds that envy makes me hate myself and cut my arms with intense feelings of low self esteem. Add to that I permanently have some level of obsession with some random person who I end up emotionally and sexually tangled with in my head. Later for some small reason I learn about them or because I become envious of them this changes to intense hate and dismissal. Then I slump and find the next obsession. This is obviously not normal but I struggle to stop it despite knowing its completely unhinged. But this is makes sense when I roll back to some of the stuff that happened when I was very young and forming the schemas on how to handle life.

I guess I'm saying that I am trying to fight this, but I don't know any different and am fighting my own volatile mind. At times I deliberately look for things to make me unhappy, because I want to be unhappy. Why...I don't know...I wish I did. I am diagnosed with BPD now and its described as incredibly tough to live with and I second that. I would not wish 30 years of this on anyone!

Hey Sarah,
You're exactly right. My mum works in the NHS and tells me constantly where money is wasted and opportunities to save are just dismissed. Add that to the funding issues because the money is all in the pockets of a few just makes it a mess. Regards suicide rates is clear that the majority don't care. Both the transgender care and mental health care crisis' have cited suicide increases. This falls on death ears. You could imagine this is seen as a positive to the powers that be as then the problem goes away!

Hey Devlyn,
The irony there is clear as day. They do however make it difficult for those of us on PAYE to avoid any tax. The comfortable like me are forced to pay and the super rich avoid it. And they also make sure I pay every penny of my university education back at £600 a month, despite that being the reason I'm able to pay so much tax.

Hi Gina,
That's very common here too, people presenting with minor illnesses. They are trying to get pharmacies to cover this stuff now which helps, but some people are hopeless.

Love and hugs
Charlotte

[Charlotte Kitty ✅]

On a more cheery note my work colleague reiterrated that she is 100% certain I received that verbal abuse on Sunday because of what we were both wearing. She said I look without doubt female and she's not just saying that. This was totally unprompted and she never knew me before transition, so I do believe her. Add that during that attack no reference to the usual trans slurs was said - just about being a rainbow and looking ridiculous. I guess the evidence is mounting in my favour here which is nice.

Still got that headache that started Monday night although it is trying to go now at least! I can't wait until Friday  getting my hair done a nice fiery red/orange. Maybe I'll get some undercut one side - need to ask how much it'll affect my overall volume before going ahead. Maybe I'll get a small undercut first and see, but I do want to have style with some attitude and to express my demi side.

[Laura Squirrel]

Here in the states, many states give free visits to the hospital regardless of financial ability to pay. But they do not cover doctors office visits. Last time I was in the packed ER, I overheard a woman checking in, "I have heartburn and need something for it". Unfortunately every system has its flaws.

LMFAO!

What the....?

What kind of goofball goes to the ER for heartburn? Wow.

I HATE hospitals. I have to be in serious trouble to go to one.

Between practically living in a nearby children's hospital in my youth, the stuff from transitioning, the follow-up for the non-trans medical issues, etc, I see enough of the hospital.

[Petunia]

LMFAO!

What the....?

What kind of goofball goes to the ER for heartburn? Wow.

I HATE hospitals. I have to be in serious trouble to go

LMFAO!

What the....?

What kind of goofball goes to the ER for heartburn? Wow.

I HATE hospitals. I have to be in serious trouble to go to one.

I have spent too much time in hospitals lately, and we have the "heartburn" cases here as well.

It costs money to go to a doctor so instead many minor complaints end up in the emergency departments.

We also have the problem of not enough beds so cases end up waiting in hallways.

[Charlotte Kitty ✅]

On a positive note I've felt very good the last couple of days, love my transition, femininity, cute outfits and all of that. It feels so nice.

I'm fighting a health battle though. Folliculitis on the back of my legs and butt is just unresponsive to all the suggested remedies. I've started laser on my butt and a little down the upper back of my legs. I'm hoping it will help. But still the entire of the rear of my legs are covered to the knee. And my neck has the same, permanent Folliculitis for a couple of months now.

You'll see below there are permanent hyperpigmemtation spots caused by the deep sores I suffer. Each picture is just part of my legs. It gets me down as I want nice pretty legs, not these that look like im diseased!

I'm going to try the big guns now. Isotretinoin which is orally taken retioids. If that doesn't shift it there's basically no hope apart from complete hair removal. I think the fact that 75% of my hair folicles have 2 or 3 hairs out of one follicle doesn't help.