There is no solution to this.....or maybe there is!

[Deborah]

I tell them almost every single session. They keep telling me I need to accept it.

it would seem then that they have given you the answer.  It's just not the one you wanted to hear.



Sapere Aude

[jayne01]

it would seem then that they have given you the answer.  It's just not the one you wanted to hear.



Sapere Aude

Except when I ask the question if I am trans, all of a sudden it becomes a question they cannot answer.

[LizK]

Except when I ask the question if I am trans, all of a sudden it becomes a question they cannot answer.

They can't tell you that...If they tell you that you are Trangender then its the same as a Diagnosis and no one who isn't qualified will give you a diagnosis because they can lose there license to practice. You need to have that MD after you name to make a Diagnosis

Liz

[jayne01]

They can't tell you that...If they tell you that you are Trangender then its the same as a Diagnosis and no one who isn't qualified will give you a diagnosis because they can lose there license to practice. You need to have that MD after you name to make a Diagnosis

Liz

They have never made mention of that to me. So how do I go about finding someone who CAN make the diagnosis in Sydney?

[Sno]

MD - Medical professional, who has completed a degree in medicine - aka a doctor or psychiatrist not a psychologist - your pyschologist should be able to refer you - you may come away from the appointment with more than you bargained for though

[hugs]

Sno

[jayne01]

...you may come away from the appointment with more than you bargained for though

What do you mean by that?

[Sno]

Doctors can prescribe, and can make further referrals.

What do you mean by that?

So they may seek the advice of an endocrinologist (or other professionals), and/ or prescribe drugs to help with any anxiety/depression that you may be feeling - all good things to medically help you.

My experience in the past ,(for something other than trans),  was it started with one appointment, and ended up as 5... I did feel cared for though, and listened too - all of which helped at the time.  It just came as a big surprise to me, to walk out of one appointment with a script for treatment and a raft of other appointments... thats all.

Sno

[jayne01]

Oh ok. Thanks for that.

[Gertrude]

it would seem then that they have given you the answer.  It's just not the one you wanted to hear.



Sapere Aude

To paraphrase Dylan, you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. I agree.

[LizK]

Jane have you thought about what you would do if you get the diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria from a Psychiatrist who can refer you for HRT and Surgery?

Liz K

[Michelle_P]

Jane have you thought about what you would do if you get the diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria from a Psychiatrist who can refer you for HRT and Surgery?

Liz K

That's an interesting path to explore for yourself, Jayne.  Treat it as a 'what if' and see where that might lead you.   Acceptance?  Would you try HRT?  Electrolysis?  Consider further steps, perhaps?

[Gendermutt]

If it is just a feeling on the inside and I don't want to feel that way, why then is so hard to get rid of? If I don't think I am a woman on the inside, why do I need to force myself to accept that I am especially if I don't want to? My therapist keeps telling me that feelings only come about when you believe your thoughts to be true. I don't believe my thoughts to be true, yet the feelings are still there. I have so much conflicting information coming at me from all angles I don't know what to believe.

Jayne, if they come up with the magic pill or potion or whatever to make it all go away, I will beat you to the line. Not because I do not like myself or feel it wrong, just because it makes life a challenge and if I can rid myself of the challenge and be like others, I will take it.

I am still somewhat new to all of this myself. I am only 3 and a half years into my own acceptance. And, I am more on the side of gender fluid, possibly non binary and can and do consider myself to be a crossdresser. To me though crossdressing is something that I do that comes from a source of gender variance, and it puts me in the spectrum of transgender. I do feel a strong feminine presence in my inner core of my identity. I had fought it tooth and nail for many many years. I didn't want these feelings anymore than you do not want them now.

I think I may have wrote this before, but I have went through the 5 stages of grief with this. Finally coming to a basic acceptance of myself. Denial, anger, bargaining, back and forth and back again I went through this in my head.

Acceptance, when it finally started to happen was not a simple switch that turned on. I still went through a lot of back and forth with it all. I remember driving to work many mornings thinking I was just a nutjob and needed to stop the insanity and get back to being a "normal" man. By the time I was driving home I was thinking of what I was going to wear lol.

All I can say is that now, 3 and a half years in, I have found so much more peace. It has allowed me to be a better person in just about every single way there is to be a better person. Letting go is so difficult Jayne, and the feelings because I am still new to this are still quite vivid for me. Letting go is frightening. Letting go makes you think you are going to fall into some horrible situation in life and ruin your life. Eventually, I lost the strength to hold on. Now, I wish I hadn't been so determined to hang on so long. I realized I spent many years fighting something that should never have been fought.

The conflict you speak of, I felt. Many of us have felt. It is you fighting yourself. I know it doesn't make any sense. It still makes no sense to me at all. It never will, other than I now understand I am not cis gender. That does not make me a bad person, nor does it to anyone else including you. It just makes you, you.

[Emileeeee]

I feel like you're very focused on the idea that you don't want to be trans because you don't want to transition, but that's not really the case. Accepting this in yourself does not necessitate a transition. It just allows the confusion to disappear.

You want a definitive answer from somebody other than yourself, but there's none to be found because it's not possible. Let's say for arguments sake that someone can tell you that you are definitely transgendered, the line of thought other posters have suggested. Would you agree with that diagnosis or would you fight it? What if they added that you need to transition? Would you heed their advice and do it?

I get the feeling that you would not. I get the feeling that the idea of permanent facial hair removal and body altering hormones is completely out of the question in your opinion. You alone decide whether a transition happens, so why then is the diagnosis so important?

[jayne01]

...so why then is the diagnosis so important?

It is important because I don't trust myself to know how to read my emotions. I'm not an emotional person, all this is so foreign to me.

[jayne01]

I feel like you're very focused on the idea that you don't want to be trans because you don't want to transition, but that's not really the case. Accepting this in yourself does not necessitate a transition. It just allows the confusion to disappear.

It is not that I don't want to be trans. I just want to know one way or the other. It is true that I would never choose to be trans. I can't imagine anybody wanting to volunteer for that kind of complication in their lives. If I am trans then so be it, but I'm not ready to simply accept it based on some feeling that I do not trust.

You want a definitive answer from somebody other than yourself, but there's none to be found because it's not possible. Let's say for arguments sake that someone can tell you that you are definitely transgendered, the line of thought other posters have suggested. Would you agree with that diagnosis or would you fight it? What if they added that you need to transition? Would you heed their advice and do it?

If it is possible to receive a definite diagnosis, then why would I disagree with that? If it can be positively determined I am trans then of course I would accept it. It is the same as if a doctor examined me and took blood tests and biopsies, etc and then told me that I have cancer. I would not disagree, the proof is there. I would definitely not like it, but I would accept it and find ways to deal with it. Same with being trans, show me the proof and I will accept it and THEN find a way to deal with it. I was previously told in an earlier post not to put the cart before the horse. That is what I'm trying to do. There is an order to things. How can accept and deal with something before I know what that something is?

I get the feeling that you would not. I get the feeling that the idea of permanent facial hair removal and body altering hormones is completely out of the question in your opinion.

That is not true. Permanent facial hair removal doesn't sound like a bad idea whether I'm trans or not. I don't like beards at all and neither does my wife, and shaving is just a pain in the bum. So permanent facial hair removal kind of sounds like a good thing either way. Maybe I should look into it.

As far as hormones go, no, they are not out of the question at all, but there is NO WAY I would start taking hormones without being sure. That seems almost as extreme as surgery, not the same, but almost the same. I don't think that is something I could do without being 100% sure. Maybe with time my view might change about hormones, but at this stage I would not consider it unless I am 100% certain. That is different to being completely out of the question.

[JoanneB]

Full Disclosure - As it so happens I have very little respect for "Doctors" or other people of letters having worked too long in the medical device industry with them. Same goes for my wife, a nurse. Same again for the both of us on the patient side of things. Most doctors are.... never mind

Trust but Verify.

If some "Learned" person said to me "You have Double Berry Berry" and I was feeling great my first reaction will be WTF? Then I'll play 20 questions and do my own homework. If some "Learned" person told me I was perfectly OK, when I was feeling totally like crap, conveyed my signs and symptoms, perhaps it's nothing but.... I'd still do my homework.

Look at things another way. It is CLEAR you are not a cis male. Cis guys do not fret over the same feelings you are experiencing. So what does that leave you? Not Cis so......? Also known as 'Somewhere on the (trans) Spectrum". As I said before, the hard part is sorting out where. For many it is not clear cut

[jayne01]

Full Disclosure - As it so happens I have very little respect for "Doctors" or other people of letters having worked too long in the medical device industry with them. Same goes for my wife, a nurse. Same again for the both of us on the patient side of things. Most doctors are.... never mind

Trust but Verify.

If some "Learned" person said to me "You have Double Berry Berry" and I was feeling great my first reaction will be WTF? Then I'll play 20 questions and do my own homework. If some "Learned" person told me I was perfectly OK, when I was feeling totally like crap, conveyed my signs and symptoms, perhaps it's nothing but.... I'd still do my homework.

Look at things another way. It is CLEAR you are not a cis male. Cis guys do not fret over the same feelings you are experiencing. So what does that leave you? Not Cis so......? Also known as 'Somewhere on the (trans) Spectrum". As I said before, the hard part is sorting out where. For many it is not clear cut

Maybe I was a little unclear. While I would trust the opinion of a professional, I would also verify, like you said above. Maybe I have already done the "verify" part by simply feeling the way I do. While I would not blindly trust any opinion simply because the person has letters after their name, if their opinion verifies what I think I feel, it will go a hell of a long way to convince me my feelings are in fact real. I guess it goes back to the engineer in me, always making sure there is redundancy, a backup to the backup.

[PipTheCat]

it will go a hell of a long way to convince me my feelings are in fact real.

So it seems that you want someone to say that these feelings are real. Would it be better to ask your psychologists that question. Except I guess, by virtue of the fact that your psychologists say you have to accept these feelings would the inference be that they believe they are real.

I went through the same process to integrate my further tg feelings in to my psyche, I asked my psychiatrist whether my feelings could not be real. And he asked me what would make the feelings not real and I said brain defect and psychological disorder. He answer that he is capable of answering the second one after some sessions. The eventual answer was that there was no psychological disorder generating those feelings.

Btw I'm an engineer too. I have always had trouble, and still do, with integration and processing of feelings. I consider my self as a robot being on the whole emotionless except with these chaotic negative feelings popping in (a few good ones here and there) and having to deal with them with the wrong tools. I guess I feel akin to Data of Star Trek NG when he had his emotion chip and it eventually fused on and the problems he had, but he eventually got used to them and worked with them. And so have I learned to deal with feelings generated by my emotion chip.

Hugs

[LizK]

Full Disclosure - As it so happens I have very little respect for "Doctors" or other people of letters having worked too long in the medical device industry with them. Same goes for my wife, a nurse. Same again for the both of us on the patient side of things. Most doctors are.... never mind

JoanneB I understand exactly where you are coming from. As an ex Psychiatric nurse I have met my fair share of "expert Drs"

[jayne01]

...Except I guess, by virtue of the fact that your psychologists say you have to accept these feelings would the inference be that they believe they are real.

Why make inferences and not just come out and say it so there is no confusion?