Do you people mind if I rant a little? No problem, I'll rant anyway!

So, I once again had a birthday. As people do. And I was wondering why my life seems to be going steadily downwards year after year, no matter how much I'm trying to learn how to live as a civilized adult that knows how to adult. After the birthday guests were gone, I was in my thoughts about this, and decided I really wanted to find an answer. And then, some hours later an answer actually did come.

It came in the form of an overwhelming urge to stop being mostly-in-closet about being genderqueer, even to myself. In a matter of some 40 hours I went from an approximately middle-aged person identifying as male to some kind of genderfluid more-or-less-transfem. During that initial thought process after my birthday party (no alcohol or other intoxicating substances were involved), I did what I could to push those thoughts somewhere into the future, because I knew I was recovering from a burnout. And I only gave up when I felt actual physical sensations of bursting into two. I did understand those sensations were not real, and interpreted them more as a sign from my mind that I will soon have another panic attack unless I accept what I am. Or kind of: What I "now" am, even though I've been that all my life, just in denial.

This new understanding that caught me by surprise pretty much consumed me for the next few days. On the fourth day, I talked about it with my boss because I was unable to concentrate to my work as much as my profession would actually demand, and they told me to go meet with the workplace healthcare about this. It's their job to support us workers in difficult situations. I got a time for one week in the future. That day came. I woke up, went to see the workplace healthcare folks, talked with the nurse for 45 minutes. At that point, when there were 15 minutes left of the 60-minute-long appointment, they told me to wait and went talking with the GP. That was nice, because I felt I was getting good-quality support with my burnout. Things would start going the right way!

After I had talked with the GP and the nurse for another 20 minutes, they decided to call a psychiatrist by phone. They had a short chat that I wasn't around to listen to, and then they agreed I'd need to go to another hospital for more help. That hospital was some 30 minute walk away, so I walked there. A nice route through parks. I really needed that walk!

There I suddenly had to wait some half an hour before I got to talk with anyone. And then they asked some questions, and I was really relieved that whatever help I'd get it would probably be good and professional. And eventually they then told that "unfortunately we have no other option but to put you into involuntary psychiatric care for some time. Call your work and tell them that you'll be on a sick-leave for the whole rest of the day."

Two hours later I was sitting in an ambulance that transferred me to yet another hospital. I was brought in through a door that needed a keycard to open.

"I am feeling a little distressed that I am now behind locked doors. May I go try the door so that I can process the situation and accept it?"

And so I was allowed to press the door handle and see and feel that the door did indeed not open. And that I was now at the mercy of other people. In the evening I talked with the doctor of that department and was told I'll need to take some medicine starting the next morning. I was told I am in psychosis and the doctor was very horrified to hear that I had already told all my colleagues at work that "I am a woman". (Which is kinda close to what I had told, but I had used a much more ambiguous phrasing.)

Me being autistic, it was super distressing to wake up, go for a 60-minute-long appointment with a nurse, and then suddenly end up in involuntary care in a psychosis ward. This distress was visible to the outside and "made it clear" that I "indeed have psychosis". So, just 24 hours after I had been admitted to the ward, I got a paper in hand that I would stay there for "up to several months". I was told that it's almost never over a month, though.

Well, I noticed there were board games to play, and an XBox, so I organized the other patients to play various board games and tried to activate them a little. Good for them! And when nobody was interested in chatting or playing board games, I would play something with the XBox. Or with my own computer that I had been allowed to have brought to me as well! I do appreciate the ward very much – it was very humane and it's a healthy place to recover if you have indeed had a psychosis.

Okay, once they've gotten the "several months" paper in hand, nobody ever leaves that ward before at least 14 days have passed. Usually more like 21 days, seldom more than six weeks. And it feels extremely distressing that you cannot know when the end of your "sentence" will come. Maybe in 14 days, maybe in three months, maybe not ever then. You're just locked in for "some amount of time."
But in the end, I was let out after just 11 days, and the ward's doctor said "I'm sad that we started your medication so early because now we cannot be completely sure you had a psychosis to begin with."

During my time at the ward, I requested the papers written by the various doctors, and found 8 factual errors in the text written by my workplace healthcare. It mentioned the physical sensations I had experienced, but claimed I was still having them one and a half weeks later. And it said that "the patient has suddenly started thinking he is a woman", even though I told it was a culmination of a longer process and that "I might even end up being a transwoman after all of this, there's no way to know".

The next hospital – where I was sent walking, regardless of the people who sent me to walk thinking I was psychotic – had written that "the patient has contemporarily been sent to workplace healthcare by their boss", missing that the sending had taken place a week before, making it look like I had been at work that morning and then suddenly ordered to visit a doctor.

So, I was in distress because of a severe burnout, I have difficulties sitting still because of my ADHD, I am not good in reading social cues because of my autism, and I had indeed had a sort of a "revelation" about my gender identity. Plus, being put in a strange place behind locked door distressed this autistic person more than it would distress the average person. All this together is apparently easy to read as symptoms of a psychosis.

Anyway, I did get out of the ward in what is essentially a record time. But now I still need to take an anti-psychotic drug and it's being controlled using blood tests that I indeed do. I am on a sick-leave with reduced pay, and therefore in difficulties with both paying for my rent and buying something to eat. The sick-leave will end at the end of August, after which I will be re-entering my profession through a trial time: First a month working four hours per day, then a month working six hours per day, then a month working full hours but under constant supervision. And all that with a very reduced salary, because I will not be a complete worker, but rather in a kind of a medical trial to assess my mental state. And then, starting early December this year, I will start having my full salary. At least until that point I will also have to continue taking the anti-psychotic drugs.

The interesting thing about anti-psychotics is that they remove the ability to feel dysphoria or euphoria. Imagine trying to learn to understand your own gender identity when the ability to feel both dysphoria and euphoria is mostly stripped away from your mind! Luckily I've got the lowest possible dose, 7.5, of the "Abilify" drug, so it has much less effect than the dose most people would get. I am still able to get hunches of euphoria and can extrapolate from that data. Plus, seeing in the evening how a beard has taken over my face during the day and how badly my very male body shape goes with female clothing, I absolutely do get all the dysphoria I need and more.

In any case, I am very surprised by how much transphobia can affect a person's life in what's supposed to be a civilized European western society! Because I don't think I'm suffering from anything else than a combination of a severe burnout combined with my workplace healthcare's transphobia.

This is annoying.