Six months ago my daughter, who is 16 and identifies as trans but has not yet socially transitioned, took a massive paracetamol overdose. It was sheer coincidence, or perhaps a mum’s intuition, that I checked in on her at 1am that morning – usually I would have been asleep at that time. We rushed to the hospital where we spent three days. It was touch and go, but she survived, and I cannot even begin to contemplate the alternative scenario.
The most striking aspect for me is the statement that there are so few non affirmative therapists at work in this country. This means effectively that there are no actual therapists at work in this country, and that there will be no more new ones in the future.
Any kind of therapeutic practice that explicitly excludes the possibility of critical examination of the contents of a mind seeking therapeutic intervention is no longer able to call itself therapy. The whole point of everything from bereavement counselling to deep analytical psychotherapy is to take the contents of such a mind, which must be assumed to be in some sense upset, disturbed or unhappy with itself, and to hold them up to the light of reasoned compassion, to examine where and how the mind can be brought into a condition of greater peace by being enabled and empowered, to be critical, sceptical or otherwise doubtful about its own contents, which is surely also a skill that mature adult human beings must develop in order to be mature adult human beings. Minds are in fact being encouraged on the other hand not to accept the disturbing or unhappy thoughts they encounter and the scary feelings they experience, but to find some way of making these go away - without question!
It is no wonder that therapists of every hue are up in arms, furious or just plain confused about what they are now expected to do. The idiotic politicians and the ideologically driven enabling organisations that manipulate them have absolutely no clinical experience whatsoever; the idea that they are so blithely legislating any relationship between client and therapist, is frankly terrifying.
Do they consider any of the possible consequences? Are they prepared to draw lines between those mental states that should remain sacrosanct at all costs and those that may legitimately be held up to a critical light? Do they even realise that most therapeutic qualifications require that the aspiring therapist must undergo quite sustained therapy themselves? This inevitably involves principled destruction of their most cherished assumptions, some of which they may be only barely conscious? Do they realise that under these circumstances, teaching new therapists becomes more or less impossible?
Or is that maybe the point? To replace therapy with ideological training and correction?
It looks more and more as if the thought police is merging into the ideology police to ensure that everybody will draw their moral, social and psychological boundaries using the same ruler to get the same neat categorisation of people into ... well, the good and the bad ... while all opinion will have been always already divided into the sacred and the profane, right and wrong, clean and dirty and so forth. Traditionally, as Mary Douglas demonstrated yonks ago, these are divisions negotiated in an active social and cultural milieu. They are now, it would seem, being imposed on isolated individuals by power to create societies of pure narcissism.
All this will come back to bite humanity on the bum and if the legislation is enacted, it will take decades to clear up the damage and to allow people to develop naturally by learning that sometimes what they think about the world and themselves is downright nonsense.
Thanks for this, and so sorry that you are dealing with it. I especially appreciate the link to the debunking of the suicide stat that is passed around. This is the summary:
PACE claimed they surveyed 2,000 trans people and 48% had contemplated suicide. In fact, 27 (not percent—just 27) of the survey respondents were actually trans.
The study had a stated goal of how mental health services could be improved for LGBT+ people, focusing on three areas in particular:
1. Suicidal ideation among young LGBT+ people
2. Heavy drinking among lesbian and bisexual women
3. Body image among gay and bisexual men
The study had two main parts:
1. To recruit and interview people with direct experience of the above mental health issues.
2. To recruit a large sample of people to complete a survey linking to the above issues to give a picture of how they impact a wide cross-section of people in the UK, including LGBT+.
The survey recruited 2,078 people. Again, 27 of those identified themselves as trans. In addition, from the survey itself, they state that it is possible based on the nature of PACE, and the topic of research that there is a disproportion of participants with experience with the above issues, and they further state that their results are only valid for their sample (i.e., the results should not be applied to any group outside of the 27 or the 2,078 people who participated in the study). In addition, there was no identification of any co-morbidities nor was the fact that participants may have been drawn to participate BECAUSE they had suffered the above issues (i.e., leading to a higher percentage of “positive” participants than would otherwise be found amongst the general population).
But this kind of information is lost on the activists and the poor kids who fall for their b.s.
Mama, your gut is the way. Intuition is the missing piece in this farce. Not listening to our guts is how we got here to this "something does not feel right about this whole thing..."place
This. I couldn't agree more. We've been groomed to ignore our intuition/bodies. Our children are especially disconnected--let's keep modeling how to listen...
Thankyou for this well reasoned and insightful piece of writing .
People need to wake up.
History will look back on this medicalisation of young peoples search for identity as child abuse .
That a small group of activists are now influencing the medical profession and government agencies beggars belief .
This makes me think of the Rotherham child abuse scandal in the uk , where social services and the police were afraid to get involved for fear of being called racist .
You are keeping your daughter safe, whilst at the same time dealing with some incredibly difficult life circumstances by the sounds of it.
How much meat does she eat? If she is not eating red meat every day, she may be anemic or low in the B vitamins. BOTH are ESSENTIAL for proper mental health. I was like your daughter when I was 13-18. I came out of it with a vitamin/mineral regimen and changing my diet to focus on meat instead of grains and fruit. My brain literally started to think differently, more clearly and logically instead of getting tripped up with unreasonable thoughts, intrusive thoughts, anxiety, etc.
Please look for a good multi vitamin with MINERALS like iron, copper, molybdenum, etc. Make sure it has the B vitamins. Look up the work Dr. Berg has shared on vitamins and minerals. Disregard the keto suggestion for now, PLEASE just focus on learning about vitamin and mineral deficiencies because I bet your daughter has at least one and it is manifesting as mental illness.
What is her sleep like? Does she keep good sleep hygiene? How much red meat does she eat daily? How often does she eat fish? If she does not like the taste of meat or seems to have meat aversion, this ALSO can be caused by low zinc and iron. It is a problem that only gets worse as you do not treat it.
God bless you and please feel free to email me if you have questions: abauerroffy@gmail.com
I'm sorry that you have extra complications while dealing with an already complicated situation. You're keeping her protected and safe though so you're doing the right thing. Good for you. 😊
I can see this in my email notifications, but not here:
"ROGD Child replied to your comment
" Probably because OP's son literally attempted suicide and OP is still downplaying his dysphoria and thinking he's faking. It's ridiculous. I hope it's fake, because if it's not, OP's son is likely to try again. And that would be horrible."
This completely gets everything the wrong way around - the dysphoria, just like the suicide attempt, is likely to be a symptom of unexplored issues. Affirmation does not deal with the underlying causes of dysphoria properly.
It's that word "literally" again. This probably happened because ROGD made the comment and posted it, allowed the software to tell those involved in the thread that it had been posted, and then deleted it. In this way, ROGD gets to say what they want to those involved but not to let it into the public domain. Only to those involved in the thread will get the email notification, which might be construed as a kind of secret intimidation. There might of course be other explanations.
Suggest while you can, remove all social media, and get out of town with her, go to a horse camp or a ranch, or some isolated place for a couple weeks. The social media influence is powerful, these kids need off of it asap while you can. TUMBLR is especially bad. You may not be able to, but at least take away all social media - it is killing these kids!
Yes, studies show that young people who suddenly develop dysphoria have recently spent a lot of time on social media and that they also have many friends who identify as trans.
Thank you for telling this story.
The most striking aspect for me is the statement that there are so few non affirmative therapists at work in this country. This means effectively that there are no actual therapists at work in this country, and that there will be no more new ones in the future.
Any kind of therapeutic practice that explicitly excludes the possibility of critical examination of the contents of a mind seeking therapeutic intervention is no longer able to call itself therapy. The whole point of everything from bereavement counselling to deep analytical psychotherapy is to take the contents of such a mind, which must be assumed to be in some sense upset, disturbed or unhappy with itself, and to hold them up to the light of reasoned compassion, to examine where and how the mind can be brought into a condition of greater peace by being enabled and empowered, to be critical, sceptical or otherwise doubtful about its own contents, which is surely also a skill that mature adult human beings must develop in order to be mature adult human beings. Minds are in fact being encouraged on the other hand not to accept the disturbing or unhappy thoughts they encounter and the scary feelings they experience, but to find some way of making these go away - without question!
It is no wonder that therapists of every hue are up in arms, furious or just plain confused about what they are now expected to do. The idiotic politicians and the ideologically driven enabling organisations that manipulate them have absolutely no clinical experience whatsoever; the idea that they are so blithely legislating any relationship between client and therapist, is frankly terrifying.
Do they consider any of the possible consequences? Are they prepared to draw lines between those mental states that should remain sacrosanct at all costs and those that may legitimately be held up to a critical light? Do they even realise that most therapeutic qualifications require that the aspiring therapist must undergo quite sustained therapy themselves? This inevitably involves principled destruction of their most cherished assumptions, some of which they may be only barely conscious? Do they realise that under these circumstances, teaching new therapists becomes more or less impossible?
Or is that maybe the point? To replace therapy with ideological training and correction?
It looks more and more as if the thought police is merging into the ideology police to ensure that everybody will draw their moral, social and psychological boundaries using the same ruler to get the same neat categorisation of people into ... well, the good and the bad ... while all opinion will have been always already divided into the sacred and the profane, right and wrong, clean and dirty and so forth. Traditionally, as Mary Douglas demonstrated yonks ago, these are divisions negotiated in an active social and cultural milieu. They are now, it would seem, being imposed on isolated individuals by power to create societies of pure narcissism.
All this will come back to bite humanity on the bum and if the legislation is enacted, it will take decades to clear up the damage and to allow people to develop naturally by learning that sometimes what they think about the world and themselves is downright nonsense.
In case anyone in the US is wondering what paracetamol is, we call it acetaminophen or Tylenol.
Thanks for this, and so sorry that you are dealing with it. I especially appreciate the link to the debunking of the suicide stat that is passed around. This is the summary:
PACE claimed they surveyed 2,000 trans people and 48% had contemplated suicide. In fact, 27 (not percent—just 27) of the survey respondents were actually trans.
The study had a stated goal of how mental health services could be improved for LGBT+ people, focusing on three areas in particular:
1. Suicidal ideation among young LGBT+ people
2. Heavy drinking among lesbian and bisexual women
3. Body image among gay and bisexual men
The study had two main parts:
1. To recruit and interview people with direct experience of the above mental health issues.
2. To recruit a large sample of people to complete a survey linking to the above issues to give a picture of how they impact a wide cross-section of people in the UK, including LGBT+.
The survey recruited 2,078 people. Again, 27 of those identified themselves as trans. In addition, from the survey itself, they state that it is possible based on the nature of PACE, and the topic of research that there is a disproportion of participants with experience with the above issues, and they further state that their results are only valid for their sample (i.e., the results should not be applied to any group outside of the 27 or the 2,078 people who participated in the study). In addition, there was no identification of any co-morbidities nor was the fact that participants may have been drawn to participate BECAUSE they had suffered the above issues (i.e., leading to a higher percentage of “positive” participants than would otherwise be found amongst the general population).
But this kind of information is lost on the activists and the poor kids who fall for their b.s.
Mama, your gut is the way. Intuition is the missing piece in this farce. Not listening to our guts is how we got here to this "something does not feel right about this whole thing..."place
This. I couldn't agree more. We've been groomed to ignore our intuition/bodies. Our children are especially disconnected--let's keep modeling how to listen...
Thankyou for this well reasoned and insightful piece of writing .
People need to wake up.
History will look back on this medicalisation of young peoples search for identity as child abuse .
That a small group of activists are now influencing the medical profession and government agencies beggars belief .
This makes me think of the Rotherham child abuse scandal in the uk , where social services and the police were afraid to get involved for fear of being called racist .
You are keeping your daughter safe, whilst at the same time dealing with some incredibly difficult life circumstances by the sounds of it.
I wish you and your daughter well.
Thankyou again for this article.
How much meat does she eat? If she is not eating red meat every day, she may be anemic or low in the B vitamins. BOTH are ESSENTIAL for proper mental health. I was like your daughter when I was 13-18. I came out of it with a vitamin/mineral regimen and changing my diet to focus on meat instead of grains and fruit. My brain literally started to think differently, more clearly and logically instead of getting tripped up with unreasonable thoughts, intrusive thoughts, anxiety, etc.
Please look for a good multi vitamin with MINERALS like iron, copper, molybdenum, etc. Make sure it has the B vitamins. Look up the work Dr. Berg has shared on vitamins and minerals. Disregard the keto suggestion for now, PLEASE just focus on learning about vitamin and mineral deficiencies because I bet your daughter has at least one and it is manifesting as mental illness.
What is her sleep like? Does she keep good sleep hygiene? How much red meat does she eat daily? How often does she eat fish? If she does not like the taste of meat or seems to have meat aversion, this ALSO can be caused by low zinc and iron. It is a problem that only gets worse as you do not treat it.
God bless you and please feel free to email me if you have questions: abauerroffy@gmail.com
A recent Steven Levine article is in my view the best and most honest critique of the Affirmitive Model of treatment.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2046221
Would only every legislator, journalist and affirmitive provider read ever word of this things might start to change
Thx for the article.
I'm sorry that you have extra complications while dealing with an already complicated situation. You're keeping her protected and safe though so you're doing the right thing. Good for you. 😊
I agree that so many of them want us to keep them safe. In some ways, it's a test of our parenting.
Is this parody?
Why do you think that?
Good luck getting an answer to this ...
I know, but I can live in hope!
I can see this in my email notifications, but not here:
"ROGD Child replied to your comment
" Probably because OP's son literally attempted suicide and OP is still downplaying his dysphoria and thinking he's faking. It's ridiculous. I hope it's fake, because if it's not, OP's son is likely to try again. And that would be horrible."
This completely gets everything the wrong way around - the dysphoria, just like the suicide attempt, is likely to be a symptom of unexplored issues. Affirmation does not deal with the underlying causes of dysphoria properly.
It's that word "literally" again. This probably happened because ROGD made the comment and posted it, allowed the software to tell those involved in the thread that it had been posted, and then deleted it. In this way, ROGD gets to say what they want to those involved but not to let it into the public domain. Only to those involved in the thread will get the email notification, which might be construed as a kind of secret intimidation. There might of course be other explanations.
Suggest while you can, remove all social media, and get out of town with her, go to a horse camp or a ranch, or some isolated place for a couple weeks. The social media influence is powerful, these kids need off of it asap while you can. TUMBLR is especially bad. You may not be able to, but at least take away all social media - it is killing these kids!
Yes, studies show that young people who suddenly develop dysphoria have recently spent a lot of time on social media and that they also have many friends who identify as trans.
You've done the best thing, could you send me the therapists details for my child... miripips@hotmail.com
Thanks