Therapy and its role in our lives

[Christine H]

I am brand new here. I have read a lot of the posts in forums. Shout me down if I have missed this, please, but I believe therapy is a key component for each of us finding our place in the world. If you can do it on your own, God bless, but you are a miracle.

I started cross dressing at age 8. For the next 50 years I kept it in the closet, sometimes suppressing it for 18-24 months at a time, but it always came back.

I first started seeing a therapist seriously 15 years ago around the death of my mother and collateral issues. Then re-connected 5 years ago around my failing second marriage (i am a 58 year-old male, at the moment).

I've been working with my therapist, J,  weekly for 4+ years. A personal relationship recently called the question (my gender identity) 3 months ago and I've been working with J twice-a-week since.

What I've been trying to reconcile, as I suspect most of us do, is how do I be a new and different "ME" with the world that knows me otherwise.

I don't know the answer, in part because I don't know who I am, fully, yet. I know that I am on a spectrum between male and female. I suspect i am closer to female than male. But I've only allowed myself to experience my real self since late July. You can imagine the surprise of my therapist when I laid this on her - its all good - she says I glow after coming out.

Coming back to the point, I do not think anyone can figure this out in a vacuum. It isn't math. This is a fundamental, physical/emotional issue.

I write this because I think seeking therapy is not optional, it is necessary. For a significant portion of my life I was an arrogant Wall Street ass, and it did not make me happy. Thankfully I've gotten past that. But finding me has been complicated.

I thought I was more or less "done" with therapy and then I realized I had this major, unaddressed issue - I like to wear women's clothes. That's how I presented it to my therapist. As we've worked through it , I have come to appreciate that in fact, I am more feminine than male, but I've been a guy for 58 years.

I have children and grandchildren. I'm not sure how this is going to go. I suspect that I will be out to some and not out to others, but I don't know.

Sorry for blabbyness, but OMG, talk to a therapist! You can talk yourself into or out of anything in a vacuum!

Worried about the cost of therapy? I'll talk to Susan about helping with it.

It is imperative that you understand you before you embark on such a significant change.

Christine

[Bari Jo]

I can't agree more.  I, however never had a therapist.  I always knew I was trans from about age 6, only I lived in repression, shame, guilt, purges forever, 40 plus years.  When my dysphoria broke me hard enough I finally admitted it to myself and accepted myself.  I don't want others to go through what I did.  See a therapist.  Talk it out early.  Accept yourself if you need to!

Bari Jo

[Dena]

There are some people that I suspect knew at a very early age and fought all their life to be the person they knew they were. They also may have been fortunate enough to have an accepting family that allowed them to do so. Because they lived with little or no conflict, they require little or no therapy.

For the rest of us including me, therapy is critical for us to clean up the mess from past so we can start our new life with a clean slate. I was aware if I built a life with others, my problems would have been even greater so I delayed a life until my transition was over. It meant there were fewer issues to deal with but therapy was still needed to clean up what I had accumulated up to that point. Because of my efforts, therapy was no longer required after my transition and it has been over thirty years since my last therapy visit.

[Megan.]

I've been working with my therapist for more than three years,  I gave up several things in order to fund this,  but I consider it an investment in my long term good mental health.
At the start it was weekly, then fortnightly,  now monthly, although bad patches like I had a few weeks back I'll try to get a short-notice session.
When I first started it was like opening Pandora's box,  inside was a part of me I'd kept compartmentalised since late childhood. That part was almost infantile,  in that it was emotional but couldn't really talk to me. It took a long time on my own and with therapist for that part to grow,  for me to understand what it wanted,  and to merge it into the rest of my mental landscape.
Some people can do this on their own, but without someone to reflect back my thoughts,  I have a terrible habit of just looping in my thoughts indefinitely.

Sent from my MI 5s using Tapatalk

[Lisa_K]

There are some people that I suspect knew at a very early age and fought all their life to be the person they knew they were. They also may have been fortunate enough to have an accepting family that allowed them to do so. Because they lived with little or no conflict, they require little or no therapy.

This more or less describes my experience. I'll share how all this went for me.

I didn't have conflict about who I was or with my folks but I sure did with the rest of the world. My parents put me in therapy at 10 years old to deal with the extreme social problems I was having because I was so much just a girl which didn't go over too well in 1965 and I had been through a pretty traumatic physical assault so they thought they needed to do something. I never thought I was the one that was having problems and getting my butt regularly kicked, being ostracized and bullied just seemed par for the course and my normal. I knew what I was and had always known but I was for darn sure not going to talk about this with doctors and doctors didn't ask or avoided the subject even as obvious as I was. I mostly found all this uncomfortable and worthless and was kind of stigmatized by it. My folks didn't have a problem with my behavior or personality but while I was gently nudged to "be more like other boys", it was never forced because it just wasn't in my nature. It didn't take a genius to see this.

At 13, the business really hit the fan. I couldn't start 7th grade because my hair was too long and I was more than a little upset, depressed and anxious about the prospect I would have to cut it and feel naked. I threatened to run away, never go to school again and was quite the little monster. We had just moved to a new town but they managed to find another therapist/counselor to drag me to in just a few days (my step-dad was a practicing psychologist). However that encounter worked out, my folks supported me and with threatened legal action and I was able to start Jr. high and keep my hair. Win #1.

Then when I refused to go in the boy's locker room for PE and had a run-in with a coach, I ended up in the principal's office and my mom was called to take me home and I then had the lovely pleasure to meet with another new shrink. I thought this was a waste of time, kind of embarrassing and I didn't say a dang thing but anybody with eyeballs could see my gender was reversed. Whatever the reason given, I did get out of the whole boy's locker room experience. Win #2.

Regular visits to talk doctors continued over the next few years which pissed me off because there wasn't anything wrong with me - it was other people that were causing all the problems and I was pretty resentful for having to do this because I thought it was worthless and I was still stonewalling because by then, I did know I was nuts and was afraid what would happen if I told anyone.

At 15, I was nearly killed in a pretty brutal homophobic attack and missed almost a month of school. Naturally, it was shrink city again but all they wanted to talk about was what happened, not the obvious facts I just wasn't a boy and why it happened. I think they were afraid of planting ideas in my head and besides that they wouldn't have known what to do with me anyway. This was in spite of the fact I had come to an understanding with my folks about being a girl but I avoided talking about this with doctors as much as they avoided talking about it with me. All this made me just hate doctors but I was really depressed and pretty screwed up so my folks kept making me go.

As much as I still had to be known as a boy, 15 is when I started really pushing things over the line which brought some measure of temporary relief but then because I couldn't really be a girl, I became much more darkly disturbed and suicidal and wanted to quit school because it was horrible. I had no idea about trans anything and no language to describe it. I just knew what I was and having to be a boy when I already looked and acted like a girl was killing my soul.

My folks recognized this and were pretty desperate. They had found a "specialist" to take me to halfway across the state but I was so sick of all this crap by then, I was resistant and expected more of the same.

But it wasn't. It took this guy about a minute to start asking the right questions and by this time I had to do something and was willing to answer. He scheduled me appointments with a psychiatrist and a psychologist for further evaluation and I met with each of them exactly once. I found out there was a name for people like me and there were ways I could be helped. I got put on hormones at 17 and met with this doctor maybe six or seven times through what was just a blip of transition (there wasn't much to do) until I was 19. By then I was working and life was pretty great and there wasn't anything I needed to go to therapy for as I was dealing with things pretty well discounting the horror of having boy parts and all that entails.

My next involvement with mental health professionals came towards the end of my 21st year when I needed letters for SRS. I met once with a psychiatrist and once with a psychologist. I'd been living full time since I graduated high school, had a good job and was doing well (except for the not having surgery thing) so both were in and out slam dunks.

1976 was the last time I had to deal with any of these "professionals" and their "therapy". As a kid, they didn't do much for me. As a teenager, they facilitated some of the practical and social aspects of the changes I went through but none did as much as my parent's understanding, acceptance and support.

I get it that things don't go this way for most folks and that therapy and counseling are very helpful and necessary. At least in modern times, they recognize and better understand all this trans stuff but I can't help but think if they did back when I was ten years old and they could have done something about it like they do now, how my life would have been different? There's still a touch of resentment there although intellectually, I realize times were very different back then and the things they can do for trans kids these days were impossible during that era. Perhaps that explains some of my cynicism and indifference about the whole therapy thing? 

[KathyLauren]

I agree with you, Christine, about the value of therapy. 

I more or less figured myself out.  I had wondered for much of my adult life if I might be transgender, but always managed to talk myself out of it.  I couldn't be that weird, could I?  When I finally met someone transgender who was just going about her life, doing normal stuff, I realized that it didn't have to be weird, and the walls came down.  I signed up here, and the more I read, the more I realized that this seemed to fit.

Still, it was comforting to see a therapist and be told that this was real.  That it really did fit me, and that I really was trans.  After 60+ years of self-doubt, I didn't have the objectivity or self-confidence to take that final step without professional certification.

[Devlyn]

I agree with you, Christine, about the value of therapy. 

I more or less figured myself out.  I had wondered for much of my adult life if I might be transgender, but always managed to talk myself out of it.  I couldn't be that weird, could I?  When I finally met someone transgender who was just going about her life, doing normal stuff, I realized that it didn't have to be weird, and the walls came down.  I signed up here, and the more I read, the more I realized that this seemed to fit.

Still, it was comforting to see a therapist and be told that this was real.  That it really did fit me, and that I really was trans.  After 60+ years of self-doubt, I didn't have the objectivity or self-confidence to take that final step without professional certification.

Pretty much that for me, too. I did two therapy visits to get my two letters for surgery. I never had the childhood gender issues, and my discovery that I'm transgender has only been a learning and enlightening experience, not something that needed to be treated. So for me, the role of a therapist in my life has been minimal, and merely a necessity for insurance coverage.

Hugs, Devlyn

[Roll]

Therapy for me didn't help me realize I was transgender, I didn't even seek a therapist out until after that point, but has helped me cope with the feelings that go with it. It is also great to know I can present as I want to in therapy without judgment. It's been worth the money for that alone, as it has helped me build a lot of confidence to have to face someone as a woman and know I survived, even in a safe space.

[Sarah77]

A good therapist shows you the rock and shows you the hard place.
It's then up to you to find the beach and sun lounger.

[DawnOday]

My aha moment with the therapist came when we discussed my former wife and first girlfriend and the strong sense of wondering why I would not fight for this relationship. This relationship began more than 40 years ago and it still haunted me until last year. I finally admitted my gender limitations. The confusion I have had since I asked Mom to dress me in my sisters costumes at 7. I remember the prayers to become a woman in my teens and 20's. Then as I got sick the realization that it would never come to fruition made me extremely depressed. Finally Kristy says. Maybe you wanted out, maybe you ignored her because you had another agenda. Then I thought wow, this is so true.By the time we split, I hated sex. In fact the two kids I have came about by accident. Finally being transgender was bandied about and I realized this was the answer I needed to continue seeking some information. By the third meeting Kristy was requesting I start HRT. It's been 14 months and I've not regretted anything. I have a calmness now that I had never known before. No more secrets, no more stress. no more lies. Lastly no more motel rooms to dress as a women and imagine what it would be like. It was getting kind of expensive, over $100 a night and that shot down my wardrobe budget.

[Christine H]

I wish I'd had the clarity that many of you had so early!

For me, the value of a therapist was and is having someone safe to talk to as I tried/try to understand this persistent feature of my being, my femininity, and think through what to do about it. I had shamed myself systematically for 50 years, trying to be the boy/man I was "supposed" to be, and suppressing what proves to be a significant portion of my identity. It was just this past August that I realized that maybe, in fact, this (the female side of me) was in fact me. So I decided I needed to accept it and explore it. Its been 3 months and my evolution has been amazing.

I work in a rural environment so I wear jeans and workboots and workshirts. I now dress en femme except for the magical camouflage of the two-pocket workshirt. Nobody notices womens jeans, and the plaid pattern and pockets mask the fact that I'm wearing a bra, including some modest enhancers to help me fill the bra out.

Back to the thread I started, since I am only out to my therapist at this point, having her to talk to is incredibly valuable in processing what I'm learning about myself and test-driving actions I'm thinking of taking. She has talked me out of risky behaviors that could "out" me before I'm ready, and she has encouraged me to develop a plan for coming out to the people who matter most to me.

Gonna be a very interesting and exciting next few months.

Best to all.

Chris

[Kylo]

It wasn't therapy that helped me figure things out, it was just being exposed to information generally in the world. Particularly one or two anecdotal experiences that matched my own. From there - being the curious and analytical type - I found out everything I needed to know online by hunting the facts down myself. My therapist is a nice person but she's not really been necessary.

If the internet did not exist, this whole process would have been a thousand times more difficult. Information offline is quite difficult to come by about us.

But like you said, this proves that figuring things out fully for most of us does not take place in a vaccuum. I knew there was something wrong without any help or information other than my own senses, but exactly what that problem was and how to go about fixing it required the knowledge of others.

[Allison S]

I was in therapy while finishing my masters degree and then again when I started my first job (telephonic therapy).  I found both helped me but for completely unrelated reasons to my gender identity.  Of course things like family, trauma, and anxiety tie into gender dysphoria but in a way I always knew I wasn't just male. 

I made the decision a month ago to start HRT and of course I'm scared. I connected with 2 therapists in the past few months but I cancelled both. Funny (ironic) thing is I work in mental health.  I do need to meet with someone for my surgery letters down the line though.

[JoanneB]

I started seeing a therapist "loosely" about the trans stuff because of ALL The Baggage that comes with it. The Shame. The Guilt. and more. The first 4 years was a T friendly generalist. The last 4-5 a for real Gender Therapist. TBH - 75% or more of the time it is still the emotional baggage as well as other "regular" life issues, all driven/guided my the trans stuff.

They serve as a great "Reality Check" (both ways) as well as a second or even third opinion you can trust.  As well is interjecting a healthy dose of reality.