Typing Queue

[Steffi]

This follows a previous and unnecessarily aggressively-worded letter also criticising me for not attending an appointment and not informing them, even though I had informed them in advance and was assured the message would be passed on. As it was, that day had a travel advisory of essential journeys only because of the snow,

The typing queue and interdepartmental communication at CX is appalling.
They have had a lot of problems with people DNA appointments so understandably became rigid and ruthless. They warn in their correspondance that a deferred appointment will be replaced one time only and that failure to attend that will result in discharge to your GP. You can reapply to CX, but have to go round the whole process again AFAIK. Less than 48 hours notice of cancellation counts as a DNA.

They MUST know very well that the secretarial side of things is a fiasco so in the first instance I would write a letter which was polite but firm about the facts of the situation, as IceMaiden suggests.
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Aside from the lamentable problems of CX communication:-

I'm much too nervous to do interactive stuff! But thanks for the encouragement.

This disturbs me greatly.
The bleak truth is that it takes bottle to transition and from somewhere you have to find that in yourself. There can be no easier start to it than a virtual support group - if you cannot pluck up the courage to talk to sympathetic, like-minded people who are in exactly the same situation as yourself then how are you ever going to go out in public in role? How are you going to fulfill the criteria in the second year of being in-role either at work, voluntary work or education? Without fulfilling that, progress will halt.

The objective which the NHS fund is to enable us to become functional members of society - they do not fund a treatment for people to sit in their room in isolation, hence the requirements of the RLE.

You cannot defer that issue for long, sooner or later you HAVE to grasp the nettle.
I do strongly suggest that you should join in the Skype-group. You can initially just listen and watch us. You can also type in any questions or topics you wish to raise.

I would remind that one member here was discharged from The Program for being too introverted and faint hearted.

[Christine]

Edit: actually, I probably shouldn't write stuff like that. But I guess my future at CX is looking pretty bleak as my social phobia is so bad that there's no way I'll ever be able to do that sort of RLE.

I'm actually feeling very shaken up by that revelation and I don't know what to do next.

[Christine]

I'm actually desperately worried about this now. If CX will refuse to ever complete the treatment programme because of the severity of my social phobia (are they even allowed to do that?) what else can I do? Surely I have some other option? There must be some way around this. They can't just say I'm not worth treating, can they?

What can I do next? There must be something.

I'm really stressed about this. Has it all been for nothing?

[Christine]

It just occurs to me, is this stipulation about being a "functional member of society" in effect before CX will continue with me courtesy of the PCTs? It's just with them having been disbanded, maybe that might have changed. That's not to say I don't want to be a functional member of society, but right now, I'm not. I'm just looking for something to hope for.

This is a terribly distressing development, though. I can't see I'm going to be getting much sleep tonight.

[Steffi]

The phrase "functional member of society" was entirely my own and in a paragraph that was clearly my own explanation/interpretation of the situation.

I'm sorry if I have upset you - and POSSIBLY unnecessarily....... presumably you have told CX of your social-phobia problem? Yet they have apparently taken you on.

The stipulation re work/RLE is part of the International Standards regarding transsexualism - I have no idea how they will handle a situation of chronic social phobia.
RLE is "to live full-time 100% in the female role" and only CX could answer whether a situation where the person doesn't go out and interact with the world qualifies.

I thought you were just a bit nervous, not chronically affected and your reply re "too nervous" jarred with my understanding of RLE, so I commented in what I thought was a blunt but ultimately helpful way.

The key question is Do CX already know about this problem? If so and they are treating you then I presume that you have less to worry about.

The person discharged wasn't from CX but elsewhere (Leeds?) Here is her Blog - she mentions Social Phobia problems somewhere in it. viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1791&start=10#p17934