Need advice on how to not chicken out of therapy

[orangejuice]

I was supposed to have an appointment with a gender therapist a few weeks ago but I drove the hour journey there and then 5 minutes away I chickened out and called to cancel. I got home felt horrible and a few days later rescheduled. I now have an appointment on Monday but I'm really worried about doing the same thing. Not only for myself but I feel really bad wasting people's time.

I don't know if I'm transgender but I do know I really need to talk to someone with experience in transgender issues. The thing is I only recently acknowledged these feelings to myself. I mean they took up A LOT of time in my head, but they were always locked away in a separate place in my mind.  And I've always had to leave that place alone to be able to actually walk out the door and semi-function as an actual human. Now it feels like I've broken down that barrier and I don't know if I've realised something real or I've actually lost the plot.

Anyway the thought of having to speak to a receptionist, sit in a waiting room, even just drive there passing people on the road, in that moment how I feel is that I've gone completely crazy and I need to turn around immediately and put that barrier up in my head again (though now I'm scared I'll never be able to do that) BUT if the therapist rang my doorbell right now I'd be like great lets talk this is going to help me so much. Like I know I have to do something I'm in a pretty bad place these days.

So has anyone on here experienced the same feelings before going to speak to someone? Got any advice on how to get over it?

[Athena]

This is a big step in your life it is understandable to be frightened. On the other hand if you are unhappy with your life currently then this is the first step in finding the light in your life.

One thing you might do is to take a $20 bill or even a 50, take it with you to the appointment and if you do back out then donate it to the charity of your choice. If you do go to the appointment then keep it. This provides motivation to go and if you do back out you help someone.

[Athena]

Also set a reward for making it beyond keeping the money like getting a really good dessert, something you normally wouldn't get.

[FTMax]

This is exactly how I felt about going in to make an appointment to start HRT. Even though it's an LGBTQ clinic, I was still incredibly nervous and had to get myself to calm down before I could even get out of the car. In addition to the general nervousness with having to say to someone "I'd like to set up an intake appointment for hormones", I'm afraid of doctors in general, so I really wasn't crazy about going in there.

But I did it, and absolutely nothing bad happened. The receptionist called me by my preferred name, helped me out by looking up cancellations so I could get in sooner, and was exceptionally helpful.

I'm sure anybody working in a therapist's office is likely to be exactly the same. They probably wouldn't last very long if they made the patients feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. White Rabbit definitely has the right idea. Set up a reward for yourself if you go through with it. Or tell someone else in your life that will hound you until you get it done.

Maybe also take a step back and assess why it is that it makes you nervous. There are a lot of online therapy options these days. If it's actually leaving your house and going in public and speaking out loud about these things that makes you nervous, it might be something to look into.

[orangejuice]

Thanks for the replies. Ye its a good idea with the reward thing but I got pretty freaked out last time and you know giving to charity is a pretty nice thing. I'd probs just be like ah well at least a charity will get some money haha.

Ye I kinda have a lot going on in my head that makes it difficult for me, including a bit of social anxiety. But I never used to be like that. The thing is I have no clue what is the thing I need to fix to stop being miserable. I even feel a little different to most people I've read on here. I just need to figure it out. I think it would be easier going if I was going knowing for sure I was transgender. What is frustrating is that it's not the actual talking to the therapist that freaks me out. It's all the stuff before that, dealing with people etc. It actually makes me think that this is not what I want at all. But you know then I get home and I'm like holy ->-bleeped-<- I'm miserable I need to do something. It could just be that I'm overly sensitive to what people are thinking about me. I've sort of always been like that. Or it could be all the ingrained prejudice against my own feelings. I don't know.

[Kaydee]

The first time I decided to talk to someone about my gender issues I picked up and dialed the phone, and then hung up before it could ring.  Four or five times!   I finally wrote and sent out an email - that only took a single push of the send button and there was no 'hanging up.'   so what you are feeling is normal - at least among this crowd.   But you have a choice.  You can continue to let the fear control you.  Or you can take control, face your fears head on, and begin to become whole.

I don't remember much of the meeting that happened as the result of my email.  I came out, asked a few questions, answered a few questions, but it was mostly a time of emotional release and learning that it would be ok to speak about these issues.   The therapist did most of the talking as I was unable to do much with all the emotion running around in my head.

But after getting through that first time I found I was able to work with my therapist, answer very private questions and look inside myself to find out who I am and what I have hidden from everyone (including myself) for the biggest part of my life.  I have begun to heal and accept all of me.

So take a deep breath and keep your eyes on the goal.   Yes there may be people in the office.  But they are there for a reason, too, and really only care that you don't look down on them.   The receptionist and therapists have likely seen it all before and won't see you as anything other than another wounded soul.   

going through with it is worth it in the end.

[Athena]

Do you wonder what it would be the opposite gender or are there times you wish you were? I mean more then an immediate convenience such as a woman kind of wishing she were a man so she wouldn't have to wait in line for the washroom.

Are there times when the thought of being the opposite gender feels more right then your own?

If so then it is likely that you do fall somewhere under the trans umbrella, I heard or read a comment that cis gender people don't question their gender.

Also therapy is there to help you find the truth about yourself, a therapist should not tell you an absolute yes/no about you being transgender they can offer an opinion but only you can say for sure. Therapists only help you find the answer for yourself.

The therapist will only guide you to the path that you need to walk and support you should you falter on that path. If nothing else they are someone to open up to when you feel that there is no one else that you can.

Find some soothing music to listen to on the way to the appointment and also chew some gum, apparently when you are eating something it helps ease social anxiety some.

This might help a bit too. https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,172772.0.html

[orangejuice]

Thanks for the advice Kaydee, I think I'm going to write down all the stuff I want to talk about right now, hopefully that will keep me motivated on what I will get out of it.

Thanks for the video White Rabbit, have actually already seen that. I've basically scoured the internet in the last few weeks (had been doing it sporadically for years previously) for anything that might help me discover if I'm transgender. Have had a lot eureka moments where I've been like wow that is exactly how I feel. But then I've also had a lot of embarassing what am I doing this isn't really me moments. I guess overall I am pretty convinced part of me is trans, or at least I have symptoms or causes ( which is up for debate!) of being gender dysphoric. I sort of have this whole chicken and egg dilemma in my head regarding my 'unusual' gender feelings, which makes it hard for me to say for certain what my problem is. I won't get into that it is pretty complicated haha. Anyway thanks again for the advice. This is all why I really need to talk to someone. Think it was good coming on here. Refocuses why I made the appointment in the first place.

[amZo]

orangejuice, trust me when I say.......... you are NORMAL compared to the typical 'nut job' this therapist sees! (just kidding about the 'nut job' thing, but I'm serious about you being on the 'normal' side of things).

Don't feel embarrassed or ashamed because there's no reason to be... assuming that's your concern... I'm not sure why you're afraid to see a counselor. Just do it, they don't bite.

[Sephirah]

I was much the same as you, hon.

The times I've seen therapists I was eaten up with anxiety. Mostly irrational anxiety, but that doesn't make it any less real. You create scenarios in your head about how you think things are going to go. Usually the worst you think things can possibly be. Like you've just downed twenty Dr Peppers and are envisioning what the worst that can happen actually is.

People telling you that they deal with these sorts of issues on a regular basis, and that you don't have anything to worry about... well, when you're sitting there, wondering where your fingernails went, and why you want to just get a hundred miles away... doesn't always work.

What I found helped was to break it down. Think to yourself "okay, I'm just going to get there." Then "Okay, I'm just going to go in", and so on and so forth. Think of it in incremental steps, rather than a whole intimidating ordeal. One step at a time.

Also, tell yourself things like "okay, I'm not going to let myself worry about it until I get there". And once you're there... "okay, I'm not going to let myself worry about it until I'm actually sat in front of them." By the time you're actually sat in front of them, a lot of the time, it's gone away.

[Ms Grace]

I was the kind of person who would bail on things at the very last minute and then hate myself for not having the fortitude to do it. I'd always feel horrible afterwards, and I'd beat myself up about it (sometimes, literally). The angst I caused myself was often worse than the original experience ever could have been.

If you're not used to talking to someone about your feelings then seeing a counsellor can be scary, I get it, but they are there to help you. Believe me, if they are a gender counsellor it's not like they haven't already heard it a hundred times before. Sure each story is different but if you look at the personal stories on this site you will see there are some striking similarities...we find living as our assigned gender to be a miserable, difficult and unpleasant experience. Talk about that with them and you'll find it will be much easier than you could ever have believed.

Let us know how it went on Monday, you CAN do it.

[Athena]

When I first came to Susan's I didn't really know what I was or rather I couldn't accept it. I hated myself and thought that I was nothing more then a sexual deviant. I thought that I was abnormal in my deviancy and honestly that I was sick and twisted and it would be better if I was out of everyone's life. When I found that no I am more then likely trans and that what I thought was abnormal in fact many went through, that lifted a weight off my shoulders and allowed me to hate myself less.

My self doubts were harmful and self destructing but many here face their own doubts. The best way to face those doubts is by talking with someone, the therapist is there to help you find your way. Many here are still here with us today because of therapy. If you are trans or if you are not, therapy will help you find your way.

[orangejuice]

Thanks people.

So was just about having one of those happy wow I think this is really how I feel moments then my friend just called me there. Was just a 2 minute phone call but its like in a second everything changes. Man am I confused. There's a lot about my life I don't want to change in any way. I can't describe how much my social life just doesn't fit with this stuff. I basically have a group of guys friends I've known since school. They're all more or less guys guys too. I've slowly been feeling more and more uncomfortable with life but the one place I still feel like I even half know who I am is with them, which makes me think ok I can't be transgender then. Its the last little piece of my life where I don't absolutely loathe myself. Although a lot of the time I do anyway these days, because they've all noticed how reclusive I've become, I sort of feel like the elephant in the room a lot when I'm hanging out with them these days. Jeeees this is rubbish need to talk to a therapist haha.

Ye will come on here and let you know how it goes. Feels pretty good to vent on here. It's funny I don't really like talking about stuff but writing it down it all comes out and seems to help.

[Athena]

The familiar is comfortable, it is a refuge when everything else you knew to be true falls apart. That and there are a lot of women trans and cis who feel more comfortable dealing with traditionally male activities then with feminine. Just because you might be trans doesn't mean that you give up everything that makes you male some people do others give up very little. The trans umbrella also includes a sliding scale where you might not be binary or you might even be fluid, these are questions you will need to answer for yourself as time goes on.

I often question myself because of the way I think, if/when I start hormones my thought process may change and I might start thinking from a more female perspective but right now I wonder if that will ever happen.

[Ms Grace]

OJ, for many years I considered that I wasn't trans, that my first attempt at it twenty years previously was just delusion. What I didn't realise over the past 10-15 years was that I was slowly spiralling downwards into a very miserable place. It was so slow I hadn't realised how truly deeply unhappy I was until something happened to knock away all the little supports I'd constructed that helped me pretend that everything was still fine. And wow, when those supports collapsed I finally saw how far down I'd sunk. If it happened I would have just kept going further and further down. Talking to someone, and being honest about how I felt was an essential step for me. And it will be for you too. It won't mean you'll be shipped off to be put on HRT and dressed like a woman, etc. if that's not what you want to do anyway then that is 100% fine - the important thing is to find what is going on for you and what is the best thing for you to do about it to a timeline you feel comfortable with.

[Arch]

If you have such a person in your life, have a trusted friend or relative drive you there and walk you in.

I would never have been able to do this, actually. Therapy is such a personal thing for me. I had to do it on my own, and I would have been terribly embarrassed to have someone monitoring me like that. But some trans people take an advocate with them to the doctor, so why not have an ally take you as far as the door?

[orangejuice]

White Rabbit, ye that's been a bit of a revelation for me in the past few weeks, the whole spectrum gender thing. Unfortunately I think it comes down to the fact that I don't think I'd pass. Like if I was a girl and acted the way I do I don't think anyone would think twice about me being me. But the thing is having to make this massive change that would literally floor my friends and family, do it in this macho environment, and most likely still looking like a guy, then me being me I feel would make people uncomfortable, it would just make them think even more that I was a freak which most of them would think anyway. I know they'd be wrong, and I'd be right, but I also care about what people think of me, and I think it would make me miserable. Haha but anyway all this is what I'll bring up with the therapist! I do feel a lot of hope about moving forward maybe I'll be able to change some of my attitudes.

Arch, thanks for the advice, but ye I'm pretty far away from being able to tell anyone who's actually in my life about this, I was seeing a therapist about anxiety before this and I couldn't even tell her, had these ridiculous conversations where I'd kind of talk around it without saying what the issue actually was and just look at her face like wtf is he on about haha. I'm going to see how I feel after Monday but I think I might start explaining things to my Mum in very small stages, sort of lead her through my thought process in the same way its happened for me over the years.

Ms Grace, thanks for the advice, I know it's what I need to do, I think having the attitude that I'm just going there to figure some things out, one of which may or may not be a gender problem, will help. I know it sounds like I might be taking a negative outlook on this but I really am happy about the thought of going, it feels like a step in the right direction. I just wish I could walk straight into the therapists room without having to deal with anything beforehand and potentially freaking out again!

[Arch]

Maybe you can arrange to talk to the therapist on the phone after you park the car. A skilled therapist might be able to talk you into the building. Of course, you would have to actually go so far as to park!

I really hear ya on this one. Is anything else about the visit causing you anxiety? When I talked to my therapist for the first time on the phone, he heard how terrified I was. He sensed that I needed to know the layout of the building and that sort of thing, so he told me exactly what to expect, what the building looked like, what the waiting room looked like, where the clipboard would be (questionnaire, history), how to open the front door (old building, tricky latch), and the whole nine yards. Once I had all of this information, the only thing to worry about was actually walking in.

[AnonyMs]

I didn't give the therapist my name or phone number. She had no idea who I was.

Its like this forum, its easy to start talking if no one knows who you are.

I've moved on from that point, but it helped a lot at the start.

[Julia-Madrid]

Hi there OJ

You've already taken the huge step of recognising that theres some "stuff" in your head that needs some focus, and that's great.  I fully understand how you are feeling about getting in front of your therapist, but may I suggest that you try see it in a different way:  you're about to start a wonderful journey, by which I mean one full of wonder.  Very few people ever get to the point of asking themselves deep and existential questions, but for those of us who do, the result is enormously rewarding.

And as another friend commented earlier on, you are far from being anything close to a basket case.  When you park and walk to the therapist's practise, you're just one normal person doing those things.  Nobody can read your mind.  And when you step into the waiting room, you are just one of several people waiting to talk to the therapist, and, seeing how you write, you'll most likely be the  most "normal" one there.  I put the word in inverted commas  because you ARE normal; you're simply questioning and understanding a weird hand that you've been dealt by life.

Don't jump to conclusions about whether you'd make a credible woman, or whether your long-time group of guy friends will still be there for you.  Chances are that things are far more likely to work out positively than you think, and the main person you need to convince is... you!

The great thing about good therapy is the growth and evolution you'll get from it.  It's a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ride, exhilarating and frightening simultaneously, but if you're honest with yourself and with your therapist you'll discover yourself, in glorious technicolor. 

Hugs
Julia