Am returning this morning as I see certain posters have removed themselves.
The myth of trans suicide is hugely significant. We spent nearly 5 years under home siege [yes, I know this sounds dramatic, but bear with me] because we were told not affirming our child would mean she would likely kill herself. We were told the likelihood of her living to 21 was remote. We were told that she had expressly told CAMHS/her youth social worker that she was planning to be dead by her 18th birthday. I didn’t sleep more than a few snatched hours in the weeks before that date.
For more than five years, we lived with all medication locked away (a fucking nightmare when you have two other AuDHD household members whose autistic anxiety manifests in severe, exorcist-level vomitous migraines and they cannot access basic drugs such as paracetamol, let alone the more potent stuff they are prescribed - because you needed to find the person with the key and know where the lock box was currently secreted). We had every knife, scissors, skewer or vaguely sharp object locked away, making cooking and food prep a flipping nightmare (and proved pointless as she just bought blunt knives from the school canteen home, and even plastic disposable ones from Boots).
As she was a night roamer, I have now slept separately from my husband for years with the door wide open and didn’t actually sleep until 3-4am at the earliest [getting up at 7 for the school run] for the entire period because I couldn’t ‘rest’ until I knew she was finally in her bed and sleeping. My husband and I used to beg each other to go and wake her up and banned our son from going up first because, for nearly five years, we didn’t know if she would be alive when we opened the door. She was very resourceful with paperclips, staples, etc. Even the side of a credit card or ID card can do some damage, if you’re interested.
And yes, she self harmed but it has since been very clear that although she was mentally unwell she NEVER had any intention of committing suicide. A) she was told by her online cronies that if she SAID she was, if she told college she had taken an overdose of paracetamol (ie a total of 4 on the 6 occasions we ended up in A&E after a crisis call from pastoral care), then apparently she would be moved up the priority list at the Tavistock. This of course did not happen. She was never even triaged at the Tavistock after 5 years on the wait list and aging out of the adolescent wait list. B) in every actual psychiatric interview, when the discussion over sectioning her and admission to hospital came up, she buckled and admitted she would never do it to her brother. Or us.
The impact on us a family has been catastrophic. My DH and I contemplated separate households, divorce, him giving up his job/downsizing and moving in with his family. I also actually contemplated suicide - my DH struggled with day to day life and had similar dark periods. We both needed counselling and medicalising for depression and anxiety. Our DS’s needs - his autism, his ADHD, his struggles - were missed due to the hyperfocus on DD and his desire not to add to our burden. We were fucking terrified that our inability to reconcile her belief that she was born in the wrong body with what we knew as fact - myself as a teacher, psychology graduate, childcare expert; my DH as a scientist and pragmatist - that ‘trans’ does not exist on a biological level and is psychologically/socially routed… could lead to her dying. And, we were told, it would be our fault. Everyone told us this, hence being reported to Soc Servs twice - we will never know specifically by whom.
All because Mermaids, Stonewall etc all mass marketed the idea that an unaffirmed trans teen will very very likely kill themselves.
Over the years I have dealt with, met known, several dozen such trans teens and they are all alive today - even the only one who actually attempted suicide at 15, long before trans identifying, who is bi polar with EuPD and was institutionalised in a paediatric psychiatric hospital for 18m [so forgive me if I feel her issues are likely nothing to do with her any trans identity].
To say I am fucking angry that this myth has been peddled is probably an understatement. It has given institutions who are supposed to support YP and their families a rod to beat them with, a way to manipulate and terrorise them. Schools, CAMHS, social services - the lot of them are directly responsible for the impact their mismanagement of my child’s care has had on our family. I will never forgive them for uncritically swallowing the bullshit that Mermaids and Stonewall promoted.