Once again, Violett telling anecdotes or stories that have happened to her despite her youth, but which I find interesting to share with the community. It is always important to pass on experiences that have happened to us in reality, so that other people can identify with them and it can help them.
On this occasion I would like to share with you the mismanagement of the Spanish public health system, specifically in the Community of Madrid, through an anecdote that, with the passage of time, I still find chilling, and I firmly believe that it shows that there is still a long way to go in terms of psychological help and counselling for the Spanish population, regardless of the problem for which they go to their general practitioner, so that a mental health professional can attend to them.
More than 7 years ago when I started to discover myself as a crossdresser girl, I was at a mental point where I didn't really understand what was happening to me, and despite having a stable partner who gave me security, confidence and support, I needed professional advice to better understand my limits and what was really happening to me.
What was clear was that I suffered from a slight gender dysphoria and that I didn't really understand why my head felt the imperious need at certain times to feel like a woman or to express myself to the world as a girl, as well as to socialise or so that people around me could also see me in my feminine side.
I have to point out that this happened quite a few years ago, when I was much younger than I am now, and that at that time in my life I felt quite lost on many points. I needed to shed light, and get important answers such as: why I felt so bad about myself when I felt like a woman and when I dressed up, as well as why I wanted to express myself to the world as a girl at some points in my life.
I have always understood that my masculine side does not have to be at odds or in discord with my feminine side but there was a point when I was younger, that I did not understand how a person who is physically quite masculine, could have a femininity in many cases higher than that of a cis woman. It is something that is apparently hard to believe and difficult to accept. It still happens to me today in many facets of my life but that will be the subject of another entry in this blog.
In short, society has imposed gender roles on us and has perfectly delimited what a woman and a man should be, and anything that falls outside this spectrum does not fit in with this imposed vision.
Over the years I have realised that I have fluctuated between the two genders, adopting a different role in each position, not rejecting my masculine side but not totally accepting it either.
For these reasons I would like to share with you my experience of going to my GP at my health centre in Madrid.
When I courageously decided to ask for help from a professional psychologist who could shed some light on what might be happening to me and my gender fluctuations, it became a real challenge and I did not find it easy to get to talk to a specialist.
Anyone else in my situation would have given up or decided to go private, but at the time, I really didn't have the money, I didn't have enough family support and I didn't really know what to do.
I still remember when my partner insisted that I should get help from a professional. At the time I was 24 years old and studying alone in Madrid with little emotional support from my family. It has always been a real problem to feel alone and not supported by the people you love, as this in retrospect is essential for anyone, but especially when you don't know what is wrong with you and you need to know who you are.
It was then that I plucked up the courage and decided to make an appointment with my GP, to try to get some kind of support that could help me to get better mentally and emotionally. Many times when I dressed as a girl I felt guilty and criminalised myself, leading me to a state of mental instability, sadness and negatively burdening my girlfriend with all these personal problems and causing her pain.
As you may well know, mental balance and mental health is a fundamental point for any person, and I am convinced that the public system should offer better services to any citizen, but especially in these times where society seems to be collapsing due to immediacy, stress, unhealthy lifestyle habits, increasingly demanding jobs and with higher qualifications to perform the simplest tasks, it should be an essential point to have a good mental health system, which can help us with all the problems that society is currently suffering, unfortunately more and more.
I still remember the Wednesday I was given an appointment to attend. I was walking down the street and I was thinking: I don't know what I'm going to say to him, or how to approach it and how I'm going to have to explain the reality that I live. For a 24 year old boy to summon up the courage to say a large part of what he lives without really understanding it 100% is quite a complex task to manage.
But in the end when you feel alone and you feel that you lack information that can guide you, in order for you to avoid falling into certain negative behaviours with yourself such as bad dressing habits, or that your mind associates dressing as a girl as a method of relieving stress or that you have discomfort from using crossdressing to overcome your fears, insecurities and pain, it is essential to have professional help that can improve your quality of life and can help you understand what you are or what is happening to you.
When I arrived at the health centre, I sat in the waiting room and at that moment my mind could only be cool and focused. I have always been a very direct guy and I don't like to beat around the bush when I have to express an opinion or explain something to anyone, and at that moment I knew perfectly well that my way of being would help me to take a step forward.
When the time comes to enter the consulting room, I am attended by a woman, probably a mother of about 40-50 years of age, wearing a white coat typical of a general practitioner, and she asks me why I am there and what I need.
At that moment I indicated that I needed help from a psychologist because I was not feeling well and I needed answers to certain aspects of my life, but above all my gender identity and sexuality. But I remarked that I would like to preserve the real reasons why I would like to treat these symptoms with a specialist, as they were very personal and sometimes difficult to understand, but that they could be summarised in a problem of identity with myself, as sometimes I felt like a boy and sometimes a girl.
The doctor did not understand what I was saying and got angry with me, telling me that public health specialists were not there to deal with the stupidities of a young child who does not know what he wants in life, but to deal with really significant cases such as battered women, domestic violence and serious abuse. I personally believe that one thing does not take away from the other, and that although these are serious examples, there should also be room for all kinds of problems.
He also told me that there was no availability in the public health system to deal with requests such as mine, which made no sense whatsoever, nor had any reason to exist, as all the specialists were very busy with truly relevant issues.
At that moment, I don't know why I reacted in that way, but out of desperation, I decided to lie, and I decided to say that I only felt like a woman, as I thought I was transsexual (something that is not true, but it only occurred to me to tell him that so that he could refer me to a psychologist and I could tell him the patterns that worried me and how I felt).
At that moment, the doctor didn't know what to say and she said to me: do you feel like a woman, but are you a man? And I told her, yes, I am a man today, but I feel like a woman and I don't understand why, I don't have any family support to be able to understand myself. I added, but today I don't understand myself enough to be able to call myself trans.
The doctor looked at me hostile, and I then argued: do you think it is important enough to see a mental health professional, or is it not relevant in your view? The woman shut up, and reluctantly began her interrogation as if it were the Nuremberg trials.
- Do you have a girlfriend? Yes, I answered.
- Does she know what is happening to you? Yes, in fact, she has encouraged me to come and ask for help.
- But do you feel like a woman? Yes, I feel like a woman at certain points in time but then I go back to being a man. That is why I need professional help to guide me.
- But, if you have a girlfriend, don't you? I don't think it's possible what you say... I answer automatically, that it's not possible what? That I can feel like a woman being a man or how?
- No, I mean that you are heterosexual, but you can be trans or feel like a woman at a certain point in time.
- Yes, I am heterosexual, what does my sexual orientation have to do with how I might feel or what my gender might be?
- It's not that I find what you're saying striking and I don't really understand it. she replied.
- And do you plan to start a family? - he asked.
- My intention is to try to form it sometime, I don't know if it was possible but at the moment I don't think about it because of my young age, but of course I would like to.
This answer blew the doctor's mind and she looked at me with a look of displeasure. And then she asked me the star question:
- but you have sex as a girl with your partner who is a woman? but if you are a boy... no?
- Yes, indeed, from time to time, I have sex in a female role, and sometimes in a male role. One is not incompatible with the other.
After this conversation there was a deep silence, the doctor got stuck and started typing her diagnosis, pounding loudly on her keyboard.
When she finished, she referred me to a public psychologist and told me that they would get back to me. The woman did not want to say any more words to me, always from a condescending and cold stance.
It is clear that in his family's view, this must not have fit in very well, because I could really see how his head exploded. It is true that I should not have told him that I could be trans, because it was a lie or maybe not, but at that moment when I go to a professional and he automatically brands me as crazy or not knowing what I am saying despite my young age, just because my problem does not fit his personal vision of society, family or gender, it is something regrettable and hard.
Fortunately, after a month and a half, I was able to see a health professional near Retiro, and was able to have a few appointments that helped me clarify some issues in my life that were negatively influencing my crossdressing and when and how I needed to dress.
A relevant point in this story is that when I went to the public mental health clinic, it was empty and if my session lasted 45 minutes, the psychologist attended me for 2 and a half hours, which was incredible. I was very grateful to him.
I told her about the GP's treatment and she told me that it was regrettable and that she could not explain it to her as it was a serious matter to be dealt with. But evidently this point of public saturation for "other problems more important than yours" was not true, at least in the times I was able to attend the appointments.
In short, the professional did what he could and the treatment was radically opposed to the retrograde family doctor, as I say, he helped me to identify some toxic patterns that negatively affected me and my feminine role, but when you see that the next appointment is in more than a month and a half, you don't want to continue with this inefficient method, because when the next session arrives, you don't remember the previous one, nor what you have treated and the professional, faced with a complex case like mine, exactly the same,
In the end I got some brief answers, some points for improvement that over the years I was able to carry out, and above all, to indicate to me that what was happening to me was not a mental problem, nor should it be incompatible with having a heterosexual partner and a family.
An experience which, after analysing it over the years, seems to me to be even at some points bizarre, hurtful and annoying, because it draws my attention to the lack of awareness and the little weight that this doctor gave to my reality, or even to my gender identity, but obviously we cannot generalise that this negative treatment can be extrapolated to the rest of Spanish public health professionals. In the end, education and ideology is a fundamental pillar in any person, and it influences positively or negatively the individual's decision making.
In any case, the Spanish public system needs more resources, and we need more support for mental health in this country in general, as it is a problem that is currently seriously affecting all Spaniards.
Mental health is the invisible foundation that supports the well-being of a society. Investing in strengthening our mental health system not only alleviates individual suffering, but also builds a solid foundation for a more resilient, productive and compassionate community. It is time to recognise that mental health is not a luxury, but a fundamental need that deserves attention and resources on par with those devoted to physical health, so that we can all thrive fully.
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