Status update on the soap opera to date: I'm 63, in the middle of Kansas, and....wait a minute, a posse just rode by....and not easily attention distracted. So, so long. Oops, sorry.
I have been under the spell of GID all my life. In the early 1970's I sought medical advice, from my general doc at the time, who referred me to a internal specialist, who did what all specialists do - run tests. Whatever paperwork I had from that escapade disapeared several moves ago, but the consensus was "no hormone imbalance or other physical problems, it must be in my head, and in fact I would not make a very good looking woman." Well Duh! I knew that. And so what. Not to point anyone out or hurt any feelings, but a lot of birth women do not make very good looking women either, so I was even.
Well, not actually even, since nothing wrong was no answer, WHEN SOMETHING WAS WRONG! As I recall, there was not even a psych referral involved, but I did not seek further "professional" help. Part of my rationalizing to do nothing more at that time was if there was nothing wrong with the body, I doubted that the head could be fixed. I mean, the first step to psych help is believing something is wrong in the head; if I didn't think there was, twenty years on a couch would be one great big exercise in futility.
I did come across information from people that knew something about this, books by Benjamin and others. I had a near marriage relationship in the seventies, married another in the eighties. We are still married, she has known about this since before we wed. She is very understanding and accepting - as well as one can be. Just as I was to begin some sort of progress on this three years ago, by son, away at school, got caught playing let's make a date on the computer with a cop play-acting as a 15-year-old. Helping him through that mess has cost a lot of money and a lot of time, and he was not in the right state of mind to bring this out to him.
I have retired. I have been some checking around for a therapist and other professionals. Hopefully, some knowledge will have penatrated to this locale in forty years. I have a list, a short list, and no information about them except apparently they have some knowledge of GID. If they don't, I've already been to ones that don't.
And I have found a TG support group that meets here. I will go to a meeting. I will go from there.
Another false start? I hope not. I do not have many starts left!
SusanKG
