Validation!

[Dee Marshall]

We don't really need it, but we want it, don't we?

I had my first therapy appointment this morning. She's very nice, sympathetic, caring and wise. Turns out she's never had a transgendered client, but she's worked with transgendered colleagues and had GLB clients. I'll stick with her, at least for now and she's researching us.

At the end if the session she eased my tiny doubts telling me that she had no doubt that I'm trans.

Obligatory DES connection. She knows the woman that started the original DES lawsuit. When I mentioned the unprovable possibility that I was exposed she told me. She said that she had never considered what the effect of DES might be on genetic-male children.

[Ltl89]

Oh, if there is anybody here that understands the need for validation, it would be me, lol. 

It sounds like your session went great.  I hope it continues that way.  Good luck.

[DiDi]

At my first appointment with my gender experienced therapist she asked me how I wished to be addressed (as DiDi or my birth name). THAT was validation!!!!

[Dee Marshall]

At my first appointment with my gender experienced therapist she asked me how I wished to be addressed (as DiDi or my birth name). THAT was validation!!!!

I would agree but my birth name is ambiguous and actually more common for women. I had also been proactive and told her to call me "Dee". She had misheard me on the voicemail and thought I was " Peter" and all of this came out when she first greeted me.

[E-Brennan]

Glad to hear it went so well.  A good therapist who lacks specific trans experience is better than a bad therapist with experience in my (limited) opinion, because a good therapist is there to guide you through things rather than give you the "right" answers.  My therapist, although experienced with LGBT clients, is very much one of those therapists who sits back and lets me talk, picking up on things I struggle with and helping me explore them.

If you connect with your therapist - which it sounds like you have - then you're on the right track.   

[JoanneB]

Needs vs Wants

Do I need to transition?
Do I want to transition?

While talking this over with my therapist her great response to me was basically they are bad questions. The implication is that one is good, the other bad. One is more important than the other. Who chooses?, Who decides? which led to further discussions and some homework I gave myself

I guess I never internalized "validation" since I never felt I was valid. My life was a lie. I was a big faker.

I was totally shaken to my foundations when I attended my first ever TG support group meeting. There I was in a living room filled with others from all walks of life and all ages, just like me. With the same feelings, the same fears, the same devils shouting into their ear.

Since I am a bit slow on the uptake, I knew with zero doubt by the time the third meeting ended I needed to be there. That my feelings are valid. Six years later I am still working on the "I am valid" part, but it is getting better