Does Mental Health need to be higher on the agenda?

[akkakk]

@MissScarletInTheBallroom posted a great post on another thread where (and I trust it is okay to quote), she said:

Secondly, you say it's not a mental illness. Why do you think this? It's not a physical illness. Prior to receiving any kind of "treatment", trans people's bodies are perfectly ordinary and as healthy as anyone else's. Their dysphoria (if they have dysphoria) is a feeling in their head. A feeling which apparently makes them so miserable that they want to change everything about who they are, even to the point of having irreversible medical interventions which harm their physical health but may allow them to superficially resemble a member of the opposite sex. How is that not a mental illness?

I think it very much is a mental illness, and I cannot think of any other example of where we harm the physical body to try to make it "match" what is going on in the person's brain, rather than attempting to actually treat the mental illness.

Brilliantly put... the simple reality with the trans discussion is that so much of the cause / reasons / solution lies in the mental health area - but as a society we stigmatise the phrasing 'Mental Illness' to the point that even though it would be helpful to the individual, we find any alternative to avoid that categorisation...

In many ways, the actions taking place in the trans world (self-mutilation / coercive behaviour against women / denial of truth and biology) are all mental health or mental illness related...

If we were able to re-frame mental illness so that it was seen as being valuable to treat it - would that not of itself go a long way to ironing out the issues / self-deceptions / lies etc. that we are seeing...

For those with Body Dysmorphia - treat the mental illness - for those with Autogynephilia - again, there is a mental illness to deal with...

Society's current framing of mental illness as being degrading / and stigmatised is unhelpful to all - if we could find ways to reposition it so that it was seen as acceptable to have a mental health issue - and to deal with it, then we might help a number of other issues along the way.

@JamieCannister I don't think anyone gets through life without feeling unhappy or insecure - I think that's an unrealistic expectation.

I would like our society, our healthcare system, our education system and our workplaces to treat people better as I think problems in these areas are causing increased unhappiness and insecurity to us all.

I'm not keen on breaking people and then fixing them. The fix is never quite as good as building strong people in the first place. (which needs strong families, strong societies)

Body dysphoria in adolescents resolves itself after puberty in approximately 85% of cases, given the appropriate treatment and not affirmative medical intervention. Those young people mostly turn out to be same sex attracted. I don’t have any data for people who are well into adulthood who suddenly say they’re trans.

I'm not surprised. Children and adolescents don't typically have the self-knowledge necessary to precisely pinpoint what their issue is. They would need a whole lot of neutral guidance to discriminate between the various possibilities.

Personally, in the case of children, adolescents, and even very young adults, I'm absolutely against any hormonal or surgical treatment, because I consider that they cannot possibly fully consent, since they don't understand what they would be giving up or sacrificing. At those ages, it's also very difficult to determine how much of their self-beliefs comes from themselves, and how much from their environment.

I agree, I believe that for young people who aren’t gay it’s mostly a social contagion, teenagers always want to mark themselves out as being different and with something like this it’s also that their parents cannot comprehend it, then it’s all the better. This is where strong parenting comes in, the best response I’ve seen to it is this -

ifunny.co/picture/mummy-i-think-i-ma-boy-well-youre-not-and-lY7v1W0XA

Heh. I endured too strong parenting, where my mother would react exactly like that even when I was factually right, so that hits a bit too close to home. And in my case, it wouldn't have worked anyway; it would just have told me that this was yet another thing I couldn't discuss with my mother, and had to wait until I was an adult to deal with on my own. But to each their own.

Agree with Red Mental health is complex and there is no real conversation about the environment that we as a society are creating and how - in my opinion - it's usually the opposite to the type of society needed for good human mental health.

Technology more often divides than unites IMO. A good example is older people like my parents are essentially excluded from being able to live life by themselves even when they could if they could do things the old fashioned way (bank branches etc) because they can't cope with all the apps and online forms foisted upon them without consent. So they suffer a complete loss of agency in their lives, in my opinion hastening their mental and physical decline, and my sibling and I end up doing it all, massively increasing the mental load upon already busy people.

Half the time now, lonely people can't even speak to a human being it's AI bots.

And mental health 'support' often means pills rather than talking therapy because it's cheaper.

In the meantime there is little to no check on the 1% exploiting the working classes (e.g. care homes being for profit and care work not professionalised and paid appropriately, and some people getting rich rather than the money going to good quality care).

My employer - private sector - has taken to sending out trite 'wellbeing tips' which without exception always make me feel WORSE. Because they're so obviously insincere and a tick box exercise. And it's particularly bad when they make a company wide change that makes my job / life harder then ignore my feedback / complaint and then send me a 'wellbeing tip' about going outside to get fresh air. How about good working conditions and adequate pay?

There was a radio segment on recently about getting long term disabled back to work where I was screaming at the radio because the person being interviewed was saying 'working will improve people's mental health'. Hmmm, not necessarily it very much depends on the way your employer treats you. Care work is bloody hard work - and often the carers are not treated well.

I doubt Sandie Peggie or Jennifer Melle or Karen Danson had their mental health improved by working in the environment they had to work in.

However, all this may be true but nevertheless I think there's a special place in hell for activists who've sought to convince vulnerable children that their parents (who genuinely love them) 'hate' them if they use the wrong fecking pronoun, which is a very difficult mental task. It's deliberately creating fragility and poor mental health.

I was using that as an example for those children that see it on social media and think it’s cool, I’m obviously not suggesting that would be appropriate for those who are suffering genuine mental distress.

I know several people who have children who fade in and out of this ideology, one in particular is a girl, when she has a boyfriend she’s very much a girl, overtly and stereotypically feminine, and when she’s single she’s a boy, crew cut hair, boys clothes and the male version of her name. She’s no more trans than I am, and some strong parenting wouldn’t go amiss. I say this as the mother of an autistic son, he could have gone down all sorts of rabbit holes had we not been on the ball with social media limiting.

You can improve mental health with really simple things. Stuff like ensuring healthy working conditions. We talk about health and safety in terms of physical risks, we don't talk about them in terms of psychological so much.

We are seeing a 'crisis' in younger people. And they are being blamed for lacking resilience. However I also think there's a discussion to be had there in terms of demands placed on workers. Working in retail or hospitality isn't the same - in part due to shift working, in part due to rising antisocial behaviour to name just two factors. Commuting is harder and longer. Local areas don't have the same centres for relaxation. We build entire estates which are no more than dormitories which are disconnected from community and having no facilities. There's nothing to do.

We are recognising this concept of increasing loneliness.

It sounds really unfashionable but we had the local pub and the local church which forfilled many of the roles. Where this still exists we have communities which are affluent and sought after as places to live. For good reason.

People are turning to political groups as a substitution for this. In my twenties I found solace in the music scene - but that too has disappeared.

Strangely enough we are seeing a pattern in terms of those identifying as trans - they are those who don't fit in. Overall we aren't really seeing a pattern of the lad down the pub who loves and plays footy on a weekly basis being the one who transitions to 'Gloria'. That's your clue about a lot of this. Those who feel they fit in, don't have a sense of something being wrong with them.

Just wanted to chip in on this one too and completely echo what @Seethlaw said. 100% absolutely yes I wished for so long that that was an option. All I wanted was to be a 'normal man'. I tried what I could think of to deal with it, but in the end I've given in.

I absolutely view my gender dysphoria (more like dysmorphia for me) as a mental illness. I'm transitioning because I couldn't cope, and I see transition as the best known 'treatment', but it's a pretty lousy treatment! It does genuinely seem to have helped so far, but it's a huge trade-off of one set of problems for another.

I also feel incredibly guilty about transitioning, I feel like I'm prioritising myself over those around me and I really hate that. Particularly the thought of making women uncomfortable is something I worry a lot about, it's not fair to them that I might be doing that. I try my best not to cause problems, so e.g. don't use women's facilities.

See, this is where I think the ones who get a kick out of it (for want of better words) have really done a number on people with genuine dysphoria.

They want to be in women's spaces with women and force everyone to refer to them as though they are women, so the message they have gone with is that being trans is something to be celebrated, affirmed and accepted without exception, rather than an illness to be treated or cured (making a completely false equivalence with homosexuality).

That does a real disservice to people who are really struggling and wish they didn't have dysphoria. It means that dysphoria can longer be acknowledged and discussed as a mental illness, which means that nobody is researching how to actually treat or cure the underlying psychological condition that causes it.

Indeed. I am part of several IRL trans groups, and there is a strong sentiment to that effect running amongst some of us since the SC ruling. Most trans people of that opinion seem to believe that there are those of us who really are "women trapped in mens bodies" or vice versa, and that our cause has been taken over by those who aren't.

I certainly don't believe in gendered souls or anything of the sort personally, I do just think we have this mental illness gender dysphoria. Transition seems to help some, and it's the best medicine has come up with so far, but it leaves a lot to be desired!

So a better treatment which involved treating the underlying psychological issue rather than modifying the physical body would be a much better option for you, if it existed.

But if it's not being researched, it will never exist.

Absolutely, I know and acknowledge I'm male, and I've destroyed what is otherwise a healthy male body. The stupidity of that is certainly not lost on me. It has helped mentally, so I wouldn't say it was pointless, but in a world where some people are born without healthy functioning bodies, it seems ridiculous to be damaging mine deliberately.

I've read brain scans are an interesting one, some studies have shown, in relatively controlled circumstances, that some (small) parts of gender dysphoric brains do look anomalous. If I'm not mistaken one study suggested that the part of the brain that deals with self-perception is statistically anomalous compared with healthy controls. Perhaps one day we can find some medicine to bring that into line.

The comparison with homosexuality is always an interesting one. Certainly homosexuality was pathologised in the past, so it makes sense to be wary of making the same mistake again. For me, the big difference is the best 'treatment' for homosexuality is just to let people get on with it and encourage society to be tolerant, whereas the best 'treatment' for gender dysphoria is a relatively dangerous set of surgeries and other medical interventions. That's a very different action! A simpler safer treatment would be preferable, whereas no better 'treatment' for homosexuality is needed.

Having known someone well with gender dysphoria from a very early age, it’s an incredibly difficult thing to have. More studies need to be done between dysphoria, trans and anorexia. There’s a lot of overlap and not that many effective solutions.

Exactly. I'd love to be questioned and challenged by doctors or psychologists, and maybe to figure out where my dysphoria came from, and if possible to cure it. But there simply are NO such professionals out there - that I know of anyway. Among other reasons because TRAs don't want such studies to be done, ever.

Really sorry to hear that, getting the right support for any mental health problem is so important.

Your last sentence is the key. There used to be such therapists - in fact, before the proliferation of the Dutch Protocol, that was the only way that gender questioning children and youth were treated. Some of these therapists worked at the child gender clinic at the Tavistock in London. Many of them were horrified by the immediate affirmation protocols that were being introduced - they joked, blackly, that the Tavistock was “transing away all the gay kids in the UK”. Same with autistic youth. But when they voiced these concerns, they were shut down, shut out and dismissed. And so the state of therapy in the UK became such that if you wanted to offer non-affirmative therapy, you had to do so in secret, or from overseas.

Hannah Barnes’s book “Time to Think” is very eye-opening on this. The podcast Gender, A Wider Lens, also talks to a lot of former Tavistock therapists, and other pre-Dutch Protocol therapists. They existed, they were just hounded underground.

So if we could apply the same solution as homosexuality to identifying as trans, what would that look like?

I understand the acceptance of people wearing whatever clothes they choose to wear and present as they wish.

I cannot accept a pretence of 'transing' ie crossing into the other sex group, which allows access to other sex services.

The problem is that you can accept someone is homosexual without having to comply with any part of that sexuality or participate in it. Transexuality seems to require participation of others who are not transexual - that makes it tricky.

@TwoLoonsAndASprout

Thank you for the explanations! It's really sad and horrible that talk therapy for young people was replaced with affirmation protocols. I can imagine that at the very least, if I'd received such talk therapy as a kid, I would not have understood what the point of it was, but as an adult I wish I'd gone through it - if for no other reason than to know for sure that every other avenue was thoroughly explored.

I've got my eye on "Time to Think". Shouldn't be long before I read it now...

Oh it’s a fantastic book - Hannah Barnes is a brilliant investigative writer. Do go check out the podcast too - they interview so many very interesting people. They even managed to get an interview with the creators of the Dutch Protocol - that one is crazy.

I’ll never forget a mother writing on Facebook that she finally had the daughter she’d always wanted when her son decided he was a girl. A skirt, long hair and fake breasts doesn’t make your son a daughter. Perhaps the mental health of the family needs to be considered in terms of young people who want to transition. They are not making this decision in isolation of family values and experiences. The mother was chatting to me at an event and she was very opinionated and a force to be reckoned with. Strong narcissistic traits came through loud and clear. I have no idea about his dad because I did not meet him but the Facebook posts from him were welcoming of the transition. His best mate has long hair so it’s not like having long hair was going against his social circle's rules in any way.

I wonder how many children decide they want to transition due to their parent having gender disappointment.

I was similar. I read swallows & amazons & told everyone I was a 'tom boy'
I hated everything 'girl' & used to be physically sick if I had to wear a dress or skirt. I was the only girl to go to school in trousers.
This was early 1980s no one had ever heard of 'trans'
Moving into teenage years I developed anorexia & self harmed. I cut my breasts & cut intimately causing life threatening injuries on a number of occasions.

I had a lot of therapy, counselling etc.

I realize now as an adult that my difficulties came from undiagnosed ASD, I was sexually abused on & off from age 6 - 13.

I'm also bisexual.

All of these things I've worked my way through over the past 40+ years & have come to accept. I accept the body I have & my sexuality. I can recognize how my childhood experiences have shaped me but don't define me & don't dictate my identity.

So yes, people can learn to develop resilience to alot of challenges.

If I had been a 6 year old today instead of in the 80's I would obviously have been immediately identified as being Trans & would have been affirmed at every point. Perhaps puberty blockers, mastectomy, testosterone drug treatment

That absolutely would have prevented me from accepting myself, my past trauma, my sexuality.

@Serencwtch

Thank you for sharing your experience!

We weren't that similar, I think? I didn't hate girl things. I didn't tell anyone I was a tomboy; I just was one. I didn't mind wearing dresses at church. I was and still am attracted to men. I didn't self-harm, unless you count my bad relationship with food (overeating).

Our common points is that I may or may not have some autistic features, and I have all kinds of childhood traumas, including sexual (but it happened after I realised I was a boy, unless something happened so early I don't remember it).

For me, rediscovering I was trans was a relief: "Oh, good, one less thing to deal with in the back of my mind!" I could let go of this particular bit of mental twisting, and just be myself, and focus on other parts of me which still needed healing.

All that said, who knows? Maybe one day I'll realise that this bit too is linked to stuff that happened very early on. For now, my trans identity seems firmly separated from everything else, but obviously, I can't be 100% sure.

What you are is a completely normal woman.