A year ago today I woke up in hospital with no memory of how I got there.

On the Monday if that week (4th December) I’d had a phone call with Dr Aguilar at the Mexico Transgender Centre. My husband was crippled with anxiety, but joined me for the call to support me.

The next day (5th December), my husband laid into me about how “unprofessional” and “dangerous” all of this was because there was no requirement for any sort of psychological assessment and no questions as to why I wanted the surgery by Dr Aguilar. He attacked my friendships and the support networks I’d developed and I felt like he thought I was crazy and I feared that he was going to try to stop me.

I didn’t feel that he supported me.

I felt obstacles appearing between me and what I needed and my mood plummeted.

I went upstairs, banded my balls tighter than ever before, then started taking codydramol, four pills at a time, wait ten minutes, then take four more. I continued this for a couple of hours, perhaps. Codydramol is a strong paracetamol based painkiller that I have prescribed for migraines.

The pain increased and became unbearable despite the pain relief, so I started drinking as well.

I became careless and my hand realised that something was up. It was him who called the ambulance.

I got to the point where I didn’t care if I died, as long as my balls died.

I passed out and when I woke up, I was in hospital. At that time I was disappointed to find that I still had testicles and, as a result, I was disappointed to be alive – even though I hadn’t set out to end my life.

The quantity of drugs that I’d taken would have ended me if my husband had not called for help.

It seems that too many of us have a life-threatening situation with our dysphoria. I wonder how many of us don’t make it? Somebody disappears from the fora and nobody will know why.

That feeling of being disappointed to be alive eventually passed – I am glad I survived.

Major Lesson in taking care of my mental health