Comped decided that after almost getting wet (and smelly) from the last event, he needed to go buy some milk. Unfortunately, every other time he's tried to buy milk during a campaign event, or even go to a store, he's usually ended up worse off, sometimes in spectacular fashion. He decided it might be best to go visit a convenience store, as the name implied that the trip would be relatively quick and easy. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be so easy, although probably more enjoyable than other times when he visited a store, or so he hoped.

The store was outside Inverness, although exactly where was hard to say. The streets blended together, so did the buildings, the cars, the people. After years of campaigning, things tended to blend together, especially in an area that Comped relatively only visited when campaigning (for he was usually at Holyrood or Westminster otherwise, doing his various official duties, or at his various castles or other properties). He noted a large sign which advertised 7 pints of milk for £2! While that is an incredibly odd choice of a unit of measurement, it seemed like a swell deal - at 0.7 imperial fluid ounces to the pence, this is a remarkably good deal in financial terms. He told his driver to pull into the parking area, and got out. His head of security grabbed the door and opened it. Which is nice, because Comped cannot generally reach door handles without a box or two, because he is a plushie hedgehog.

The owner was an older man with seemingly a Welsh accent, who was quite excited to see the First Minister in the shop. Comped walked over to the milk fridge, and opened the door after climbing on a box of candy someone nicely left nearby. He pulled out a gallon of 1%, and handed it to his head of security, who walked it over to the counter. Comped wasn't going to take any chances after all his in-store incidents as of late. He walked over to the counter, and hopped up to pay for the milk.

"What brings the First Minister into my shop?" asked the owner

"I'm buying some milk!" exclaimed Comped

"Is that for some kind of milk-themed campaign event? The media has covered your strange history of campaign events before. Did you burn your mouth during that couch frying?"

"No, I'm fine. And no, it's not for a campaign event. I just want to drink some milk."

"Oh. Well, I just wanted to say that I'm planning to vote for you."

"Why thank you! Why's that?"

"No other candidates has come to my shop before! Not even rat-monger!"

"Rat-mo

I’m asking because I think that’s the one I’ve been referred to seeing as I live closest to Inverness, so is it any good?

HIGHLAND AND GRAMPIAN, GEXVI

INVERNESS CITY CENTRE, FIRST CAMPAIGN STOP

Haroldinite steps up to a podium, he rearranges the mic and gets ready to speak. “One, two, three… One, two, three” he says into the mic. Now that the sound check was completed he could start to give his opening speech.

“Hello Inverness! It’s an honour to be here today and stand before you as Labour’s candidate for Highland and Grampian! It’s an honour because it is now more important than ever that we elect a Labour member of Parliament to represent this amazing constituency, Highland and Grampian. Times are changing and working people of our country are struggling to get by, to put food on the table and to put a roof over their head. Labour’s policy on food poverty, social houses and welfare are so important to not only the future of the working class but the advancement of the working class too. Not just in Inverness, but all around Scotland and the UK.

Our current MP, scubaguy194, is a good lad. He’s doing a good job as First Minister, even if he represents the liberal politics which has failed many people in the United Kingdom by failing to truly tackle poverty, empower workers and invest in our future. This election is our chance to get a strong MP with left wing ideals and a strong party with a commanding presence in Westminster. We can get an MP who delivers democratic socialist policies which benefit working people, not just the wealthy. Now is our time to do that!

While we’re talking about changing politics for good and shocking the world, Labour’s policies will change Britain for the better. Labour understands working people, Labour understands how to change the economic and monetary policy of this country. We’ve done it before. In 1945, as I’m sure you’ll all know, Labour won a massive landslide against an extraordinarily popular Prime Minister and government. That government did good, no great, things to this country. The NHS, a cradle to grave welfare state, nationalisation of industry that helped the economy, unemployment benefits, hundreds and thousands of houses and so much more! Labour’s done it before, we’ll do it again.

The Labour Party pledges to create a fair education system that works for everyone in our nation. Labour will shrink classroom sizes to an average of 15 by 2025 to ensure that students up and down this country have a fair chance in schooling and the schooling p

I don't know if I'm missing something obvious, but there seems to be nothing useful in this area.

• Yes, there's the under resourced Highland GIC, which does little more than refer you to Sandyford GIC (Yay, wait on one waiting list to then have to join another!), but it's something separate from that I'm looking for, since it's just really clinical stuff.

• The previously named Highland LGBT Forum is now Highland Pride, and their sole focus now seems to be just occasional pride events around the region.

• There's Swans, which at first glance sounds promising, but turns out to be mostly just a group of transvestites (not my words) that meet once a month.

• There doesn't seem to be any sort of gender therapist for probably at least 100 miles, and even then, I'd be doubtful that they'd truly know the subject.

What am I really looking for? I guess just some sort of locally relevant social and moral support, but preferably with some sort of online forum, since anything in real life is going to be a real struggle, certainly at first.

Essentially decades of social anxiety and depression have really messed with me, on top of the more recently discovered underlying gender dysphoria, which has all ultimately left me completely socially isolated, certainly without any form of support network, and at times wondering how many more months, weeks, or days I can keep going. And this is all whilst still closeted, so I fear that it's going to get worse when I do finally come out.

 

An update:

Rediscovered a Facebook group that I'd completely forgotten about, and is probably my best bet - Highland & Islands LGBT+ Support Group.