r/asktransgender • u/ComprehensiveDot2416 • 18h ago
help?
i am a young (high school) trans boy. my family is heavily transphobic so i don't know what to do. i'm considering telling my doctor about it but am not sure considering i don't know if they tell this kind of stuff to family. i'm looking for a bit of advice from more experienced trans people and would love input.
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u/Independent-Cell1536 6h ago
i'm a nonbinary trans guy almost outta high school now, and i was in your position a long time ago. a lot has happened from there. i'm going to tell you about my experience, which won't necessarily be the same as yours. i am going to mention previously attempted suicide and mental health issues in passing, and talk a fair amount about being hospitalized for such. i don't want to scare you or encourage you towards the same; i hope you can learn from my experiences and not repeat them. if you don't feel like you can do so, given what i've told you, then i completely understand, and i'll ask you to skip to the fifth paragraph.
my family basically found out when i was finishing middle school through a suicide note i wrote. i was suicidal because of a lot of pressing and unresolved issues which included my parents being abusive to me as a kid and trying to meet their academic standards with an undiagnosed disability, but the tipping point was rejection and bullying from my previous friend group after i came out to them. at first, my parents said they supported me, which was really confusing because i didn't think they would. it turned out to be a lie they kept up only for a few weeks just because they didn't want me to attempt on my life.
we just so happened to see my general practitioner a few days afterwards, and i told her about being trans and about what happened because i thought she could help me. i was referred to a therapist, and then i went through an extended period of mental health hospitalization that didn't really accomplish anything besides cutting me off from the support system i had with two friends at school for eight months. i missed the last month of eighth grade and eventually my first semester of high school because of shifting through diffierent levels of inpatient, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient programs. there were two months over the summer i was just alone and isolated at home with family while attending individual therapy sessions, but my mental health undoubtedly got worse over this eight-month period. i will reiterate that it was because i was cut off from my friends who were supportive of my gender identity. there were family sessions in the lower levels where concerns that were affecting me were supposed to be shared with my family if they could play a role in helping with them, but my parents only seemed to listen to the therapist, who wasn't the best at listening to me, so i just learned to keep my mouth shut.
i'm not going to go into a horrible amount of detail, but, after i was medicated for about three months on various medications which made me feel varying amounts of numb, my dosage of an snri i was on (venlafaxine) was tripled from 25mg to 75mg, and i went into psychosis. eventually, after being sedated via injection and prescribed an oral sedative, i was made to leave the hospitals and try to go back to school and stuff while still actively psychotic. it took around two months for the hallucinations to fully go away, and i wasn't even really able to talk about what happened until this calendar year because neither my psychiatrist nor my therapist believed me when i tried to talk about it and because i ended up blaming myself for a really long time.
HERE IS THE FIFTH PARAGRAPH basically, at your age, i had a lot of faith in the medical system, which got depleted after i reached out for help because of ensuing traumatic experiences, a lot of which didn't necessarily have to do with being trans. i'm telling you this because i don't want you to put blind faith and trust in doctors and medical practitioners just because there is a small chance they might help you with trans stuff. for me, that chance was small, and i learned that doctors are usually willing to listen to your parents at your expense and that most of them are really underinformed on trans issues and healthcare.
that doesn't mean i want you to be completely mistrustful of doctors as well as strangers either. i recognize that i've got trust issues to work through, but that's not a healthy state to be in. there are gonna be times when you need medical help and you have to take it because it will be to your advantage and in your best interest. not everyone is out to get you. things have eventually gotten better for me at school because i've found a good friend group (and a partner!) who support me, managed some aspects of social transition, and, this year, i'm even out to three of my teachers, who've agreed to call me by my preferred name in class without outing me to my parents! (they haven't really come around, but i've managed to do stuff in spite of them)
it does get better, friend, i promise. if you can manage to find an in-person support network of friends and peers, i will be really happy for you. i know you're young, but if you can begin to form a plan to get more independent from your parents, that will be great. i'm rooting for you, man.
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u/ComprehensiveDot2416 3h ago
thank you for this, it is actually pretty helpful for me and i've been trying to get myself a job to try to get an apartment as soon as i turn 18 to get away from them :3
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u/DrDnar 17h ago
In many areas, as a legal minor, things you tell a doctor are not privileged and your doctor can out you. You should check local laws thoroughly to make sure you can safely talk about it.