Pages Oct 21, 2012 We Need To Talk About Trans Mental Health Max : There has been a lot of talk recently about Transgender people and Mental Health. On the one hand we've got LGBTQ Charities quite rightly raising the alarm that suicide in the Trans* community is reaching tragic proportions- that we are internalising the often violent attitude of society in on ourselves. On the other hand we are standing up and saying 'Transgender is not a form of mental illness!'- what is going on? To get to the bottom of all this, I decided to talk to Sarah Savage about her courageous (and sometime hilarious!) journey to feel good in her skin and her mind. Here's what she had to say; Sarah : Little over a year ago I was still living as a male, I was broke, living in my car and at the bottom of a deep dark hole. In the years leading up to this point I had become extremely depressed, I had self harmed since I was a young teenager, struggled with alcohol and drug abuse, pulled away from my friends and have even attempted suicide in the past. I was addicted to escapism, anything to stop the incredible sense of dread I felt from having to live as someone who I was not. I knew I did not have the strength to begin transition on my home island of Jersey so when a stranger I'd met on an internet chat room asked me