Durjoy Sen-1

“You’re going there for mental health care at a vulnerable stage & the people who are there to care for you are rude, aggravating the whole situation.”

Durjoy (he/him) is a trans man from Kolkata. His mental health journey began 9-10 years ago when he was going through some issues while in school & had to drop a year. At the time, he hadn’t even considered that it could be mental-health-related. At the behest of a close relative who had gone through similar things before & recognised the signs, he consulted a psychiatrist who diagnosed him with depression and OCD.

While his therapist was constant, changing psychiatrists meant that their interpretations & prescriptions would be different. He recalls once being prescribed incompatible medication, leaving him so exhausted & sleeping for extended periods of time that he couldn’t even wake up to eat regularly. “She [the psychiatrist] prescribed me the wrong medication.”

Once he was admitted to the Institute of Psychiatry by a doctor but recalls the environment & behavior of nurses being awful. When his parents tried getting him discharged, they were informed he was being kept under observation for a study so that he would be available at all times for questions. “That should have been cleared with me, I did not hear that." He left that day itself, but he’s concerned for the people that stay bearing s rude behavior. He was willing to participate as long as he could come voluntarily to the hospital but the lack of transparency and awfulness of the whole ordeal deeply affected him. But he points out that the doctors are generally great, and even if you don’t match well with one, you can change easily. The cost is also affordable. “There are positives but the negatives need to be corrected.”

On top of all this, the pandemic dealt its damage. With ill relatives, stuck inside the house for so long, with his education affected & financial troubles, mental health took a nosedive. He was accepted to a college but couldn’t continue there. "Maybe if it was an actual in-person college environment,[...] maybe I would've graduated by now."

In the next part, Durjoy talks about dysphoria and being in a toxic workplace.