OK so I thought I would give a little update on where things are at the moment.
Firstly, my emotions are still all over the place... huge troughs and peaks. One moment I am excited and the next I am really down and depressed. It is not every few seconds like before and I am not shaking with them anymore. I will go to bed elated and wake up depressed but beginning to rise, peaks about 1pm and then I start entering depression again, bottoms out about 6pm and then begins to rise again. It is emotionally draining... but I am slowly, not getting them under control, but learning to cope with them.
Secondly, I had to cancel the appointment with the general therapist because it clashed with the appointment I had made with my GP and only the GP can refer me to a Gender Identity Clinic. So GP>general therapist.
My appointment with my GP was on Thursday. It was a nice day and the surgery is a little over a mile away, so I decided to walk. I find walking helps calm me down and gather my thoughts on how I was going to approach him with my Big Secret. However, the closer I got to the surgery, the most I started to drag my feet. Until I realised I was going to be late, which, meant I had to quicken my pace. So I arrived a little flustered, very anxious, and a little panicky.
Thankfully, I didn't have long to wait. I went up the stairs, thinking, 'this is it. I hope you know what you are doing. No turning back now'. I knocked and entered. He greeted me and asked what can he do for me....
'I'm not sure how to say this, I've been thinking about how I was going to say it all week, but, I would like you to refer me to a Gender Identity Clinic to see a Gender therapist'... the words might not have been exactly like that but that's more or less what I think I said.
He replied along the lines of, 'I suppose this isn't something you've just thought about but have been thinking about for a while'.
I said, 'yes, I've been suffering with gender dysphoria since I was 2 years old but have kept it to myself. Until recently, the only person who I had ever told in person was my wife before we married because I thought she had a right to know before we married.'
and then I told him the full story from start to finish and the episode with my friend and how I was unable to control my emotions and unable to put the lid back down on the box. I wasn't really paying attention to him as I spoke but when I finished and looked up...
I swear he was excited at the prospect of treating me. He was positively jumping in his seat. I guessed the prospect of something new to make a change from all the daily routine bad back, cold, rash, cough etc. stuff he normally has to deal with was exciting for him. He said that it is very rare for him to deal with people with gender identity issues and has only ever treated one other person a long time ago and he would need to bring himself back up to speed on what has been happening in that sector since then.
He was very positive and nice about it. Non-judgemental. I had made a list of sites for him to check out in case he was unfamiliar, including the details for being referred to the closest GIC. He said that the girls on reception would be able to find the information for him and that made me a little anxious. I told him I was tired of hiding and was going to be honest if people asked but that didn't mean I was going to shout out loud and tell the world... at least not at this stage. If things progress down the line, then perhaps I will join the fight on the front lines but for now, it is still a very private thing for me and I am still trying to deal with the demons of shame from 44 years of hiding who I am. My doctor might not know the rest of my family and I trust him not to say anything, but the girls on reception, they are local girls, they will know who my family are and my extended family are quite large in the region where I live. I am related to more than a quarter of the village. I might even be related to one of the girls on reception in a round about way. So that made me nervous.
Anyhow, I digress, So he told me he would give me a ring after he had spoken with the GIC and let me know. I walked home feeling a lot lighter as though a weight had been lifted and I was in an elated mood. Then as the minutes turned to hours, the sinking dread started creeping back in. I was feeling a little low when I took my daughter to her karate class at the local highschool. After dropping her off, the senior netball team were waiting for their minibus for a game... most men would've probably been leering at the short skirts that made up their uniform, I was just jealous I wasn't one of them... it surprised me the intensity of the gender dysphoria I felt just then. I ended up sitting in the car for an hour until my daughter had finished her lesson. Trying to pull myself back together.
When we got back home, my wife told me that I had missed the call from the doctor. That made for an anxious and depressing night. I was emotionally drained, so rather than chat with Steffi and Moni who have been AMAZING! Seriously amazing and incredibly helpful... without their support I wouldn't have progressed much from my original post, I would've been shaking and hiding in the closet, falling apart into a nervous breakdown. No words can thank them enough... so rather than chat with them, I just went to bed.
I was hoping for the call in the morning. I was nervous and anxious. The minutes turned to hours and I tried to stay busy by working on an online course I am doing. Eventually the call came about 1.30pm. The doctor had spoken with the GIC and they were happy to see me. So he'd completed the referral forms and I was now in the system. Currently waiting to hear from them about when they can fit me in. I am expecting a long waiting list, so I am prepared for that.
So now I am in the system. Anyone doing a security background check on me will know. That thought made me anxious... but now I am thinking LOL... anyone checking will finally be able to realise why my psych tests are incapable of putting me into a box.
So now it is just sit back and wait. Try and control my emotions. Continue observing how the sexes behave... spent a week being super observant watching people on the playground waiting to pick up their child. The way women stand compared to men, the way they walk, how they fidget less, keep their legs closer together, shift their weight less, rarely put their hands in their pockets, rarely look downwards. Looking at what they wear, very very few have a heel on their shoe, most wear trainers. Dresses and skirts tend to be worn only by those returning or in the morning going to work. Most wear jeans. Observing the jewellery they wear, their make up, but not just observing women, observing how men stand in comparison. Trying to see where the differences were located. I feel like my eyes have been opened to the world... in the past, I've always just kept my head down and people were just fixtures in the background. Very few women do anything to stand out from the crowd. Very few stand by themselves. LOL - that sounds super creepy... but I am not staring at people in the playground, I am just paying more attention to the little details.
Just watching my wife more closely getting ready in the morning, it is a daunting prospect that these are all things I am going to have to learn if I am going to start climbing this mountain. The lazy person inside me is saying, why bother, you've got it easy as a bloke... my logical mind is comparing the cost and thinking about how I am going to pay for all of this? I lost my job at the end of last month and I was going to shave my beard off before seeing the doctor but I honestly could not bring myself to spend money on razors and foam when I've only got 2 weeks worth of money left for buying food and no sign of where my next cash injection is going to come from... for this to happen now is really inconvenient although it probably wouldn't have happened now had I not been laid off (remember it was ticking the male box on equality forms that made me seek help from my 'friend')... and my true self is saying, 'yeh, we're getting out of the closet, let's party!'. No wonder my emotions are all over the place.
I spent 4 hours trying to come up with a new name for myself. I started with Alice, dismissed it, then Emma, dismissed it. Then thought why not go with the name my parents had always wanted to call me (my parents were convinced I was going to be born a girl and had only thought of a girl's name before I was born, when I was born it caused a huge family argument on what to eventually call me... my grandmother's suggestion won the day), I was supposed to be Lucy, short for Lucinda. I am still not convinced on Lucy. I was going to call my daughter Skye but it became a popular boys name in Japan, so we went with something else, so I was thinking Lucy Skye... a quick google and yep porn star name and as Steffi pointed out to me... Lucy in the Skye with diamonds. That's just asking for trouble. So still thinking...
I find myself running too far up the road and part of me is sticking 'his' heals in to slow me down. I can decide names when I come to that bridge. The only reason I was thinking about it now was because Nym lacks the personal touch on the forums. It is the short version of my gaming character's name and stands for Nymph but it is also short for AnoNYMous. Anonymous - nym - nymph.
I've been helped so much by people here, where I can I want to help others. I keep the forum open because it stops me feeling so alone and helpless. But now and again I see posts from people who are desperate and I read so much of myself in them, not just the stuff that has been happening recently but the things that happened when I was at highschool feeling suicidal at the age of 17, the guilt and shame I felt in my early 20s, the failed attempts at mutilating myself when I was 15. I want to reach out to these people and give them a big hug and tell them that it is alright, there are people in the world who care about them, people prepared to listen, offer advice and help them through it... the same way that Steffi and Moni have helped me these last 2 weeks. I can't give back financially at the moment, I don't know where this road will lead and I don't know what trials I will face along it. But I do know how I felt in those moments when it all felt too much... and just having a friend, knowing there was someone in the world who cared about me. That's worth a lot. So if I can provide that, then it is my way to give back... and as things improve in my life and I experience more, I will be able to give back more.
LOL... I write far too much... if you made it this far, well done, have a star for your reading book - lol. Hopefully, there will be something here that can help someone. I am in a much better place right now... I don't know my destination, but I have a direction to follow now and people who appear to care about me and are guiding me on the way. For that I am eternally grateful. I will keep you posted when I get my appointment and after I see the therapist... it might be a long wait though.
(still) Nym (for now)
