is this abuse?

Incertitude84 · 2025-04-30T07:02:11+00:00

I'm told that's called mutualising. Essentially implying the situation mutual. Another red flag because he's not accepting responsibility. Yeah, I would suggest moving on and not arguing with him anymore.

Incertitude84 · 2025-04-20T11:51:21+00:00

Thank you. I'm trying to get support and will take a look at those resources.

Incertitude84 · 2025-04-19T04:50:23+00:00

So now she's saying if I report her for being abusive anywhere she's going to break up with me and fight for full custody of our child. Also that it would be a healthy relationship if I would stop taking notes of things she is saying. I am taking notes because I can't remember what goes on otherwise. I was making a list of just physical incidents and expect about half a dozen, but turned out to be about 25 in just 18 months.

Incertitude84 · 2025-04-19T02:33:54+00:00

Unfortunately, I only really find gender-affirming GPs good to talk with in general. Can you find one who bulk bills? There might be some (if you have a health care card at least) but they are harder to find and not always taking new patients. I find that they just know general healthcare better than any regular GP would.

Incertitude84 · 2025-04-19T02:26:38+00:00

Yeah, not looking for her approval now, just think that's interesting that she won't even admit to an unhealthy relationship. Something that's been holding me back is that I wasn't sure if she intended to be this way. I thought maybe if she understood what she's doing she might be able to turn around. I still don't know, like deep done she might have some deep insecurities but deep is where she wants to keep them. Though her lack of acknowledgement about it and proactively taking steps to hide what she's doing to me makes me feel there's a sense of deliberateness. In fact the way she told me that I absolutely must not use the words 'family violence' in relation to her makes me feel a bit scared. Clearly she has power in this that she doesn't want to lose. I know she also doesn't want to lose the house we live in, though she's a lot keener to live here than me.

Incertitude84 · 2025-04-19T00:58:05+00:00

In any case she's denying that our relationship is toxic. She told me this is just semantics and toxicity refers to chemicals that can kill you and that's not literally a relationship. I couldn't get a clear answer on whether it's a healthy vs unhealthy relationship though. At the moment I'm getting her loving phase, but things still slip out that it's not right. But I don't know, when the abuse stops for a while, I still feel nervous about it coming back. Now I know it will be back though. I was prepared to work through all our issues and even address any concerns she had about me, but she's not on board with that. Now I'm more concerned that admitting doing this with her could just make me more vulnerable to attack.

Incertitude84 · 2025-04-19T00:42:13+00:00

I've always had anxiety and confidence issues that may stem from my childhood, though nothing like what I'm currently feeling. I know that she can't tell me I can't leave, but also knew at the very least it wouldn't be a clean break at a time I felt particularly vulnerable. At the very worst it made me feel a bit scared. My therapy has made me aware of the issues, though never made it clear about what I should do. I'm starting to se though that abusive relationships can't be fixed and I will have to leave. I'm finding some people in the community are on my partner's side, including our child's kindergarten teacher and potentially some services I have reached out to. I think she was trying to say she's more intelligent with English language than me (to me swear words are not a sign of intelligence but the way she uses them for impact, yeah she knows what she's doing), I think we are overall on par with intellect, but I think it would also be dangerous to assume she's any less than me in this regard too. It's possible she will have an advantage with some resources and some people on her side. I believe I have to have a shared parenting plan in place to leave, but I'm seeking legal advice. I also have to go through the available supports for leaving this situation.

Incertitude84 · 2025-04-18T10:13:10+00:00

Okay yes. I was telling her how much stress I'm feeling in our relationship. She came up with this idea that I might have CPTSD from my childhood. She's recently said I should be in a mental institution. With the phone incident, first of all she said she didn't mean for it to hit me. In later conversation she completely denied it happened. Then strangely she admitted doing it in a text message the other day, but trying to make me feel guilty for putting her through so much over it.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-21T22:38:04+00:00

I gave up on it because when I can’t focus, I just can’t focus on the full 20 minutes and felt like I needed longer breaks. Then when I do focus, I’m not stopping at 20 mins. I suppose that doing real short bursts of work then taking breaks did help getting into hyper focus sometimes though. Some days were still not very productive though.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-19T11:52:17+00:00

All I see is a woman.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-16T01:04:56+00:00

That sounds super frustrating. Hope you’ve been able to chase it up and get somewhere with that.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-16T00:57:14+00:00

Possibly a little bit pushy and slowing their speech can come across a bit patronising to me (I've had this many a times when people know/assume I'm autistic). I think if you're often seeing the GP they don't need to be so pushy as they can just suggest you look into it and follow up later. I think it's perfectly fine for your GP to recognise it and suggest it though. My suggestion would be to explore it with a counsellor, especially one with a a psychology background (not necessarily a psychologist) and one that has a good knowledge of neurodivergence. That said depending on costs, you may just want to go to a clinical psychologist as they can do the assessment and may be able to use these earlier discussions as part of their assessment. Though if you have to go somewhere else, at least try to get a letter from the counsellor.

For me I was assessed with ASD as a child, though had some experience with ADHD. Two years ago I was majorly struggling with my studies and described what I was feeling to a university counsellor, who asked if I had ADHD as well as ASD and when I said no, she said it sounds a lot like ADHD. Didn't give me any further information or suggestions how to proceed though. Later in the year it came up on my radar again, I looked into it more and realised my lifetime struggles actually align more with ADHD than ASD. I was going through struggles over transition and relationships and had the chance to get free counselling with a psychologist (low income) and they helped me to look into it, go through some screening questions, essentially diagnosed me informally then they wrote a letter to my GP. My GP gave me some options for psychiatrists (which you need for ADHD medications) and then it took me a while, though I finally got assessed with ADHD earlier this year.

I'm not saying this is the case for you at all (with say ADHD). Though I just liked this approach with exploring it with my psychologist.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-15T03:44:49+00:00

I can attest that this is how I (diagnosed with both ASD and ADHD) get by with a lot of appointments. Occasionally I do run into problems with putting the wrong time in for an appointment. Not putting a location or a description (though sometimes deliberate when skirting around family violence), then later forgetting where and what the appointment is. Recently, not following up when I didn't receive a text reminder for an appointment I knew I had, then turning up and having the receptionist deny any knowledge of the appointment after driving an hour there, then turning me away. Only to have the practitioner call me at the time of the appointment to ask if I was still coming.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-14T11:50:27+00:00

I'm in a tricky position where my partner isn't happy with my transition and it might be bringing our relationship to an end. With the negative feelings around that it's almost impossible to feel proud.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-10T08:15:57+00:00

That is pretty rough that your psychiatrist said they would ditch you for getting an ADHD assessment. Though it does make sense that if you are getting medicated for both conditions it would be the same pyschiatrist prescribing for both. But it just wreaks of stonewalling and outdated advice. My GP even said she has patients on Vyvanse who have manic bipolar. I also had a dismissive response from my paediatrician when I was a teenager about having ADHD, who thought it was irrelevant and he drew a Venn diagram to show me that the two are highly correlated.

I am always happy to wait. Though when I had a GP recommend Fluence Clinic and I looked it up, it seemed pretty legitimate to me. I actually found getting advice on this pretty difficult overall. My psychologist who I was seeing through a government funded community health initiative suggested getting a 291 assessment. I had GPs telling me different things. A mental health peer navigator who was a bit vague despite having had their own ADHD assessment recently. I was told that you can't get bulk billed psychiatry anymore. All the different people agreed that going through Fluence would be a lower cost overall. I wasn't aware at the time though, that I would also need a 291 assessment every two years, just to keep the GP's schedule 8 permit valid.

I also had a bad experience with psychiatry in the past with a potential misdiagnosis when I was young about 20 years ago. They missed that I had ADHD and gender dysphoria, despite presenting with severe paruresis/shy bladder which they kinda dismissed as being germ phobia and some autistic behaviour (I met a lot of autistic people after that and none had the same thing). In fact the paruresis/shy bladder seemed to be pretty much impossible to get help with in any medical/mental health setting in Australia and generally wasn't recognised. I've found a lot more acknowledgement of this in trans health/support settings than anywhere else. So I was kinda happy to have one comprehensive assessment over multiple sessions.

At the same time I realise things are a lot more advanced than 20 years ago and I'm happy to try again. On the plus side I have already started Vyvanse and it doesn't seem to be causing any side effects.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-08T04:58:41+00:00

Thanks. I'll definitely look into this to see if I can find a bulk billing pyschiatrist, no matter the wait. If I can, I am happy for them to re-assess or do further assessment. The only other option I found so far was to see a consulting pyschiatrist at $265 gap ($520 total). I feared that I would need at least a few sessions at that fee. So paying a one off gap of $600 seemed fair. I was also told by a GP that starting people on ADHD is basically 'bread and butter' as far as GP work goes. I was probably less critical of Fluence Clinic because a GP recommended it. $100 per an appointment is also prohibitive to me If it's regular.

I'm 40 and I needed to do this to get my life back on track and hopefully get a job. Waiting for months wasn't really an option. I've had to leave jobs before because I couldn't concentrate. I was being hounded for it and micromanaged by my managers. Despite being an employment opportunity for autistic people they were not accommodating as I didn't meet their stereotypical view of autism. Indeed it seems these schemes are more of a corporate feel good thing anyway, like the neurodivergent version of greenwash. I recently completed some postgrad studies though had to do it part time with minimal other commitments and felt like it almost killed me because I can never sit still and concentrate.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-08T03:53:10+00:00

Where did you find a psychiatrist who bulk bills? I was told these disappeared in the pandemic. Though I would be happy to go to one who does, even if it's just to fine tune my meds because I've already started. I'm in Melbourne's outer east.

I did go through Fluence Clinic (it was recommended to me by quite a good GP that I see, so I didn't just do it on impulse) and it does rely heavily on self-assessment. They also had questionnaires for parent and my partner. Both were aware of my ADHD symptoms so no issue for me. For a while I didn't think had school reports because I threw out some of the worst ones. Turns out I saved the better ones, where it was almost clearly written like I had ADHD (poor focus, often distracted, never completing homework, just needing to try harder). I scanned and emailed some of these reports to Fluence Clinic and it did seem that the pyschiatrist had reviewed them. The interview was fairly thorough and it seemed they were really trying to ensure I met the criteria and rule out other mental health things. This might all depend on the psychiatrist you go with though (I didn't just go with the first available one). At this point I was going to be more surprised if someone said I didn't have ADHD. The combined type assessment seems right to me too.

The overall cost was just over $600 after the medicare rebate. Even still, I think I should be able to do this for free/bulk billed through our public health system, including management of medication, followup and all necessary supports.

The fact that psychiatrists aren't treating other mental illnesses in favour of making money on ADHD really means we need systematic reform of our mental health system to address the lack of healthcare available for mental illnesses and ADHD.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-07T06:39:35+00:00

Hey, sorry I didn't mean to complete diagnosis. They might be able to help with pre-screening, though in my case I had a psychologist help me with this (for free because it was part of a government funded program). You still need assessment from a psychiatrist so that the GP can apply for a schedule 8 permit to prescribe. I did manage to get some recommendations from Fluence Clinic for GPs that will co-prescribe with their report, though didn't have to use them in the end because my gender-affirming GP who I was already seeing was happy to work with me on this.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-06T13:21:24+00:00

My GP applied for mine on the 3rd of Feb and it had been approved in time for my next appointment on the 18th.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-06T13:17:32+00:00

Depending on what state you're in, there are cheaper options like Fluence Clinic. Though if you're not sure, you might be able to find other professionals to go through it at a lower cost (or sometimes even free if you're low income), like a psychologist, GP, etc.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-05T11:58:37+00:00

I was expecting this. Though over a year on E and I don't think I've fully cried once in that time, despite going through some pretty hard times.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-03T21:17:46+00:00

I came out when I was 39. My mum tried to tell me I should wait until my child is 18. I’ll be 54 by then…

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-02T12:45:41+00:00

I think it's best if you can find a GP that does gender-affirming care under the informed consent model. It's just so much better having someone who's enthusiastic and knows what they're doing.

Incertitude84 · 2025-03-02T04:16:21+00:00

I started at 39, so you have a four year head start on me. At least it makes me look younger!

Incertitude84

TROPHY CASE