It’s a year since my gender confusion and the resulting depression forced me to my doctors surgery.

The wait between making the appointment and the waiting room felt like a life time. I tried to work out how I would phrase things, what I would say to get my message across, even other things I could invent to talk about should I arrive in his office and simply be unable to open my mouth. How do you tell someone that your physical body does not match the person you are inside, and that the disconnect is so great that you simply have no choice but to address it head on?

As it happens it turned out to be very easy, my doctor if nothing else, is an extremely good listener. I fumbled for a few minutes before managing to say enough for him to understand what I wanted, he listened, asked all the right questions and I left his office with a huge weight lifted and a prescription, assured that while he had no experience with transsexual patients, he would find out what had to happen.

I got a call the next day from the local mental health services to come in for an evaluation, met with a psychiatric nurse to talk about my suicidal thoughts. Buoyed up from the talk with my doctor, I had a very frank discussion with the assessing nurse. At the end of the interview the initial hope that something positive would come from this, that I was on the first step and I would get to see a councilor who could deal with my gender issues, were dashed.

The health service was covering its backside. I had suicidal thoughts, should I actually kill myself the resulting inquest would look at what the health service knew about my mental state and what care was provided. I was deemed not to be at immediate risk. The (female) nurse even suggested that I might not like being a woman and I shouldn’t dwell on it, not high risk, not interested.

I’m sorry, I’ve been bearing my soul to you for the last 45 minutes and you’ve obviously not heard a single word. Please stop glancing at your watch like you have somewhere better to be.

Back to my doctor to get him to refer me to a real psychiatrist, and increase my dose of anti-depressants.

I have to say now that the anti-depressants (Sertraline) did not agree with me at all. Actually, saying they didn’t agree with everyone else is probably closer to the truth. It felt like I was on an emotional roller coaster, fine one moment, at the bottom of a well the next. For everyone around me I was simply impossible. I was back to the doctor several times, first to increase my dose (which only seemed to make the almost manic swings greater) then to switch me to a different medication (Citalopram) and all the while pressuring him to get things moving. He had referred me for some counseling, I just had to wait.

In the end my boss sent me home to get myself sorted out. I really must have been bad!

I ended up having a month off sick, the new pills brought things under control and I had some time to do some serious thinking. I had started to accept that I would not get anywhere quickly on NHS and that I had to do what I could on my own.

Today I’ve taken another step on my own, this is a step I’ve been struggling with since I first went to my Doctor, and if it wasn’t for my depression is something I probably would have done instead of talking to him a year ago. I’ve just taken my first anti androgen (spironolactone).

Time to stay in Wonderland and see just how deep the rabbit-hole goes.