Is it all a symptom?

• Posted by Deborah Taylor June 17, 2014 #  #working as a woman  #gender identity disorder  920 views
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  Since my last update a couple of things have happened that are quite important to me, both bad news, but at the same time have buoyed my mood - perverse aren't I?

   

  The first was I went to get blood taken for blood tests that are required by the GIC. Before the week was out, I'd had a phone call off the GP surgery asking me to come in the following morning. It was fairly bad news. It turns out that I'm B12 deficient to an extraordinary degree and require a three week course of every other day getting B12 boosters, before going on a quarterly regime of further B12 boosters.

   

  Apart from that, I didn't even have high cholesterol, and it was only the fact that I'm otherwise ridiculously healthy that had stopped me keeling over and being rushed to A&E.

   

  Side effects of B12 deficiency are varied and many. There's the insomnia, which I have in spades, and which I thought was leading to my lethargy and general tiredness (I'm the expert at the afternoon snooze), but these are both symptoms too. Another symptom is anxiety, a variation of the very feelings that had led me to seek a referral to the GIC in the first place, that caused the blood test, that found that perhaps my inability to cope with having a dual life is yet another symptom.

   

  This revelation made me feel somewhat better about myself. Perhaps I'd not lost control of myself after all, but instead needed a pick-me-up.

   

  I'm still going ahead with the GIC appointment, although I feel that getting my vitamin balances right may well sort my head out too. My being trans isn't a symptom, unless I've always been deficient in B12. So that shouldn't go away once I get back up to the right level.

   

  The anxiety-like feelings were what also led me come out at work, and be myself much more, so for that, I'm grateful, because it ranks up there with the best things I've ever done. So I won't be stopping doing this.

   

  The other thing that happened this week was I got a letter from the Gender Identity Clinic telling me that my case had been referred to the Clinical Commissioning Group, who would - in 18 months to 2 years - decide whether I should be referred for treatment. So in two years time, I will find out how long it will be before I can get treatment. Which knocked me back a bit. However, yet again, this cloud has a silver lining, because the knowing that there's going to be a good three years before I see anybody gives me and my family time to adjust to the new reality, and it's defused a building tension in the house.

   

  On the whole, I'm feeling much more positive this month. If very, very tired.