I witnessed this first hand in a close relative who, in the throws of a multi month long bipolar psychosis, concluded that the source of her mental health problems was gender dysphoria. The internet was very influential in her reaching this conclusion. The internet also allowed her to locate a dr who didn’t restrict sexual reassignment to those without mental health comorbidities. Thankfully the very liberal dr she found was too far for her to travel, since she could not drive and Uber wasn’t yet a thing.
She was stabilized on antipsychotics a few months later and completely dropped all discussion of gender dysphoria, something, to be clear, that she had never talked about or hinted at prior to her psychotic episode.
It concerns me that had she had this episode a few years later, when the medical ethics had changed and Uber made it possible for a mentally ill person to travel to the city where the dr she found was located, she likely would have undergone some form of reassignment surgery with lasting physical effects and potentially catastrophic effects on her psychological well being. She has been happily married, well more or less happily, for more than a decade now, to a nice man. No sign of gender dysphoria and no recent psychotic episodes.
She was stabilized on antipsychotics a few months later and completely dropped all discussion of gender dysphoria, something, to be clear, that she had never talked about or hinted at prior to her psychotic episode.
It concerns me that had she had this episode a few years later, when the medical ethics had changed and Uber made it possible for a mentally ill person to travel to the city where the dr she found was located, she likely would have undergone some form of reassignment surgery with lasting physical effects and potentially catastrophic effects on her psychological well being. She has been happily married, well more or less happily, for more than a decade now, to a nice man. No sign of gender dysphoria and no recent psychotic episodes.