After speaking a bit with someone else from the forums over e-mail today (I'll leave it up to them if they want to jump in and say "hey it was me!"
), I decided I want to write this! This may not be structured very well, and I apologize if it comes across as disjointed at all as I jump around with new thoughts on different parts of it. Anyway, here we go!
This is to all of us who find ourselves nervous, anxious, worried, and scared--us who often suffer from social anxiety disorders that drive our behavior in what we know are often self defeating ways. Not just in regards being trans, or perhaps being trans, but regarding life in general. In particular, those of you who may lurk but fear making your first post on these forums, or those who regardless of posting struggle to reach out for the help you need.
First, a bit of personal context. When dealing with the world at large, I have always been plagued by a few constant thoughts that drive my anxiety disorders. I have worried that in reaching out to someone, even professionals, I am simply bothering them. I have worried that a single response from an individual reflects the responses I will receive from all individuals. I have kept my mouth shut time and time again, for fear of saying something that reveals a weakness, a flaw... things that I worry may come across as silly or stupid, worried that people may think less of me or judge me. Most of all, i have worried that I am being an imposition on people, even those who care about me the most and who do not hesitate to come to me for support when they need it.
For example, when I began my journey in full last August, my first major order of business was attempting to find a therapist. I had a lot of issues surrounding finding a local therapist. Of course, reaching out to a stranger, even one who deals with transgender patients for a living, and saying "I am transgender, will you treat me?" is a terrifying thing. After days of building the nerve, I hit send on my e-mail. And then get back "Sorry, I'm not taking out of state patients". No commiseration, no recommendations, nothing to help assuage my fears at one of my most vulnerable moments. This simple reply set me back almost a full week before I had the nerve to try again. And if not for shear desperation, I don't know that I would have been able to ever try again. If I hadn't, I don't even begin to know exactly where I would be today, but I do know I would not be anywhere near as happy and confident as I find myself becoming. Now I look back and wonder... why? Why was I so afraid of reaching out? Well, being trans is scary, true. But mostly it came down to that I felt that I wasn't worth their (the therapists') time, independent of being transgender. And that quick little reply just confirmed that feeling in my head. Did being trans contribute to that feeling of worthlessness? Probably, but it certainly would have existed even without it.
But the response I received from that therapist brings me to my first major point:
People who don't suffer from these types of anxiety... they don't understand. They don't mean to trigger it in others, it simply is not even a conscious thought that they might because it is not something they have ever dealt with. They offer a quick response like they would be able to 90%+ of the population, and move on without any idea or intention of the damage that may have just been done. It does not mean they are dismissing you, or that it is any judgment on you, it is simply how the majority of the human race interacts.
This goes into a second major point:
A setback is not the end of the road. You absolutely will face setbacks. In my case, I encountered the fairly minor one all things considered (though I can only say that in retrospect, at the time it felt devastating) of the first therapist's reply, but also have run into a handful of other ones as time has progressed. The worst for me was when I was going to start HRT. I saw my doctor, and did my blood work. And then began the waiting game. I expected it to be a week or two tops, that is what I was told by everyone. But those weeks passed by. Playing into the issue of worrying about bothering people which I will address in a moment, I put off contacting my doctor repeatedly and just kept waiting. I was going deeper and deeper into a depression, terrified that something was very wrong with the blood work. Worried that I would never receive the hormones I at that point so desperately needed. And just plain sad about the lost time spent on those hormones. Well, at about a month I finally work up the resolve to ask my doctor. She says shell look into it. Turns out the results had arrived weeks before and she had slightly misplaced them in a pile of paperwork. She only knew to look because I had contacted her. I was worried over nothing, and by not contacting her sooner
I had sabotaged myself and cost myself those weeks of agony. Sometimes things happen. The doctor is very competent, it was just an honest mistake with paperwork that the majority of people would have addressed with her before it was ever an issue. In reality, most issues are resolved quite readily, and a certain margin of error has to be expected when dealing with paperwork or bureaucracy (such as with insurance or dealing with government issues). Yes, it will always be annoying, but I've learned you can't let what would be an annoyance to someone else be a death blow for you.
On to what seems like a minor issue, but one that is quite sinister and debilitating despite that minor appearance. The fear you are "bothering" someone. So before I get into details, I will say unequivocally:
You are not bothering anyone. Yes, people can certainly be a bother to others, but it's one of those funny dissonances... If you are worried about being annoying/bothering someone to begin with, then
you aren't the one who is a bother/annoyance. It's the people who have no clue or worry about ever being bothersome who are the actual annoyances.
(Though in a bit of irony, worrying about annoying someone can actually annoy them! So stop worrying about it, you stop annoying them!
) Particularly when it is a professional. They actively
want you to contact them and reach out to them! It's how they make money! On this topic for my own part it has been a major issue in my life as I forego reaching out to others, thinking that if they want to talk to me they will reach out to me, and that if they don't they just don't want to talk to me (and therefore by reaching out to them, I'd be bothering them). I have let friendships fall apart over it, I have lost touch with many people close to me, and I have generally failed to nurture relationships. As I've found the nerve to reach out to people, more and more I've found that they absolutely love to hear from me! Of course that sends the mind wondering... "Well, why didn't they reach out to me?" The answer was pretty simple: while social anxiety in general is not an issue the majority of the population face, this particular fear seems to be. Basically everyone is worried about the exact same thing, and so no one reaches out to each other when they would genuinely all be happy for the connection! And those who do tend to take the initiative to reach out become dejected about the contact not being reciprocal when you don't reach out to them, and then just assume that is a sign on your end that you are the one not interested. (Essentially, they get sick of the burden being entirely upon them. It takes two people actively engaged in communication to maintain any relationship!)
This is getting a bit longer than I intended, and I am not quite to a major thing I want to say yet so I will leave the rest of it there and just jump to that. The issue of making a post on these forums...
Whether you've posted before and are worried about posting again (be it starting your own thread or commenting on someone else's) or have only lurked, too nervous to make that introduction...
You are wanted here. Your feelings are wanted here. Your opinions are wanted here. You will not be judged. You will not be rejected. You are among those who can understand what you are going through more than anyone else, many of whom have those same fears starting out on these forums.The point of these forums is to provide support to those who need it, and if you find yourself here then you deserve that support.
It doesn't matter if you think you just might be trans either, even if you turn out not to be, you still absolutely deserve support in figure that out and belong here every bit as much as anyone else. This also goes to those who have engaged in the forums but find themselves worrying about not fitting in, about people not liking them, or anything of that nature. Forums... they can be a bit one sided sometimes in that you only make contact when people actively reply. But the thing is... for every reply, there are a dozen or more views. When people don't reply, be it to an individual post or a thread you start, it doesn't indicate a lack of interest, only a lack of constructive replies. If you ask a question no one has an answer to, you aren't being ignored... it's simply no one has the answer you are looking for and it is only natural for people to not attempt to weigh in on things while assuming someone with the answer will step forward. It's also easy for individual threads to be missed, particularly in the sub forums. Again, it is not anything personal at all against the poster, it's simply logistics of how forums work. It is not often a form of communication. for "me too!" comments that let you feel that interaction, even if there are probably many people reading a post who think exactly that.
Bottom line: It doesn't matter what the little post count based "category" you have under your name,
you're family.
