Okay..... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I know this may get old for some of you that are long into transition, HRT, FFS, SRS etc... (and I do have some jealousy for the women deep in their journeys) but I am a newbie trying to build my network for support; had my first therapy session today with a recommended gender therapist.

Although we touched on the basics, background, possible traumatic events in life, length of feelings, expectations etc..., and I found it easy to open up to her ( the first person in the 53 years of my life that I have been able to openly express my feelings and desires to make the change), the real question is:

WHAT IS IT EXACTLY I SHOULD BE DOING WITH THIS THERAPY AND SHOULD I HAVE SOME TYPE OF EXPECTATIONS FROM THE TREATMENT?

I mean don't get me wrong, it was exceptionally powerful to FINALLY be able to talk with someone about my buried, suppressed and hidden secret about Allie and her needs to be released, had a very hopeful response to loading me up with all the local resources, groups and professionals needed to continue in my journey, left me with an incredible heavy head from all the unloading, but what is the long term expectation.

I so want to get on my journey now that I have opened up even so slightly, so ahhhhhhhhhh.

Help?

If hrt and transition is want you want then I believe you need to be up front with your therapist and let her know you want to start and need referrals. Some therapists won't write one on the first visit, but I know some girls who got letters after the first visit. The way I see it, if therapy is just a means to an end then you need to be honest so she can help you. If you feel that she is holding you back from transitioning and you decide to stop going and focus on transition then you both lose. She stops cashing your checks and you don't get the help you need. It's lose-lose. So tell her what you want, what your goals are, and how she can help you reach those goals.

Hello Allie

The wonderful thing about your therapy is that you can make it into anything you need it to be.  Congratulations for being brave and starting.  Age isn't important, and you'll find plenty of advice here, if you need it.

My opinion, all 2 Euro Cents worth is this: use this therapy initially without any direct goals or destination in mind.  It's a wonderful place to be open and frank about yourself and to yourself, and to learn more about who you really are.  You will likely need a few sessions before you feel comfortable with yourself, and with your therapist.  Float a bit, look at episodes in your life and see how you can draw the common threads together into something that you find cohesive or explanatory.  If you're honest with yourself you will be stunned by what you find, hidden right before your eyes

What to do after that?  I think that the answers will become evident to you as your journey unfolds.  It's your personal journey, so you can choose the destinations.  One thing however, and I've encountered a few people who have had similar experiences:  this type of therapy may feel like a roller-coaster ride- exhilarating and at times totally terrifying.   

A word about HRT.  If you choose to go that route, my strong suggestion is to consider it as an aid, rather than a miracle cure.  If you do it correctly the effects are likely to be slow, subtle and very agreeable.  But the girl should already exist - between your ears.  The HRT will just help her gain a little confidence.

I hope my metaphorical ramblings make sense.  Just take things at your own speed, and enjoy the ride 

Hugs
Julia

Thanks girls, I appreciate the responses.

This seems to be the recommended route towards actualization to the ultimate goal to merge physical with metaphysical ( although I have felt this way my whole life) and an opportunity to see if there are answers to deal with the things that scare me in changing my life.

I am a product of difficult therapies in youth where the goal was to create a persona within the accepted gender norms ("you have a boy's body "act like a boy"") and the only solution was to internalize my personal struggle and work very hard to try to act as what society expected and continue towards that. Sad days. So over a great many pains and years I accepted my fate and became the pillar society expected. Eventually got married (and I love my wife, but doubt her conservative self will accept this (a longer story from being from conservative roots in a conservative part of the country)). So it is not necessarily the fact that I want to be whole, but easing the great psychological difficulties with transition and how it affects wife, family, workplace and all other places I connect in the community. I am hoping to find the perfect therapist relationship that has truly dealt with someone at my place in life, with my circumstances to help make heads and tails of all of this. My resources are limited here; would absolutely kill for a like mentor or group.

Thanks, as always.

Quote from: Julia-Madrid on September 17, 2014, 05:07:16 PMBut the girl should already exist - between your ears.  The HRT will just help her gain a little confidence.

100% agree.

Goals for therapy?  That's tricky.  Some people go into therapy knowing that they absolutely have to transition, and they essentially want to get someone to rubber-stamp an HRT letter.  Some people (like me) go into therapy to explore whether their feelings are valid, or whether they're just depressed or suffering from something else which is manifesting itself as a gender-related problem; they need some kind of reinforcement that their feelings are real and something to act upon, and once that question is answered, they can proceed to HRT or some other treatment.

Now, that said, you found yourself at a gender therapist. That alone strongly suggests that there's something wrong with your current gender identity. So make that your foundation. You've got gender issues. How far do you want to travel down the path to resolving them?

You don't have to have a specific goal right now, but as a good starting point, perhaps aim for a recommendation for low-dose HRT? That's generally a pretty good way of finding out whether you're trans or not without causing any irreversible effects. (But really, the moment you put the frickin' patch on your skin, you're almost certainly trans - non-trans people just don't do that kind of thing!)

In terms of what a therapist can do to help you? Well, they can't cure you of being trans. They can help you accept where your feelings are coming from and help guide you to solutions that might alleviate some of the symptoms, but beyond that, there's not much they can (or should) accomplish. Think of the therapist as your reflection in the mirror, just with an independent mind. He or she will listen to what you say, help guide you to the important questions that need answering, and will check that you're on the right path.

A good therapist is a priceless ally in the transition process. If you're happy with the one you've found, let the relationship develop.

Great advice here.  The therapist is your coach.  They will help you uncover and unpack your feelings, fears and dreams.  Let the journey unfold and the destination, direction and best pace will become quite clear.  There may be unexpected twists and turns.  It will all be good.

Safe travels

Aisla

I have to second what Julia said. When I finally decided to take the trans beast head on I was 52 and knew/felt I was a TS since about 5 yo. When you grow up in a lower middle class first generation American, blue collar, mostly eastern European working class city and home.... well just say feeling like a girl was not exactly PC.

Six years ago my life was about as totally in the crapper as one can get, as once again the excrement hit the air handler. After a LOT of introspection I realized how I was NOT handling being TG was a big factor, in fact root cause, in all of my life disasters. My goal in seeing a therapist who was TG friendly was in finding new tools, and insights in handling being TG while keeping other aspects of life intact, and especially help in unlearning or modifying the self destructive behaviors that landed me there. Six years later and now seeing a for real gender therapist a lot sure has changed, yet a lot is still the same. My life sure has taken a lot of amazing turns.

I can highly recommend finding a TG support group, if not several. The therapist came months after my first support support group meeting which totally blew me away. If you are unsure of yourself, your feelings, and perhaps totally devoid of all hopes wishes and dreams, bar one given up on long long ago, the experience of being in a room filled of others whose stories are close to yours is amazing.

As always ladies, I appreciate your support and experiences to help my with this journey.

We are all different and very much the same. My background is from a long time military and suburban conservative family and background that attacked my desire to be different  at a young age (7ish) with the core response; "you are what you are and not what you think". It is fair to say I did dress privately in my sisters things moving forward. Then puberty hit and it was terrible and for the most part that time my memory is limited in what I remember because I worked so hard to block the misery out. This was the second lap of counseling that suggested (as the 70's so nicely represented) that you are a man because you are in a man's body so adapt and become the man you are becoming. Being that age in that sociological time I either had to sell out or kill myself. I love myself too much for the latter.

It was hard but not impossible because I would rather have relations and relationships with women, than men. There is nothing much I like about the male gender or myself in a male body, particularly the alpha male; so I worked very hard to become the alpha male persona I detested and own it, at least outwardly and I was good at it. It was lifetime theater.

In high school I worked so hard to be appearing athletic and it took great work to develop skills to pass that way (accomplished tennis player), and even played football senior year. Never went to prom because I felt that I would hate wearing a tux vs. a dream dress, although having women at my beck and call. I will repeat, I love relations with women.

College, fooled myself too much and basically had a miserable four years, despite having a cache of clothing and decent relationships. Again late 70's, early 80's and society mandated I play the role.

Early adult life struggled while building a huge career and ultimately finding a woman I would like to spend my life with. Settled into the life with kids, community leader, dad, husband, career, money and found myriad ways to succumb to my secret desire and needs to become complete with outside diversions. Now, that the kids are out of college and in their lives, so much of the family have passed (grandparents, aunts, uncles etc), my social circle being weaned down as I don't need to gun my network to provide for my livelihood, and a transitioning marriage after 25 years (kids grown and out, dog passed, different life, but good) I feel as though it may not be too late, 53, to make the move to finally merge the physical with the meta-physical for the future. I so dream of my feminine self, the journey over the next couple of years, the mind change, body change) I really can no longer work to lie to myself and society.

But again, I like my therapist but would kill for the ability for a mentor of like women (mid-50's start in transition) to get answers or direction. Like I said early on it was my ego that kept me from killing myself and my ego to own the alpha male persona outwardly to become successful in business and the community. This ego will also mandate that I become the same outwardly beautiful woman as I am on the inside. I do not want to be a haggard old woman and fear the early and mid-transition  because of this. I understand there is a means to the end, but I don't want to get stuck in the middle. Obviously I fear the unknown.

Thoughts?

Quote from: m1anderson on September 22, 2014, 09:20:44 AM

But again, I like my therapist but would kill for the ability for a mentor of like women (mid-50's start in transition) to get answers or direction. Like I said early on it was my ego that kept me from killing myself and my ego to own the alpha male persona outwardly to become successful in business and the community. This ego will also mandate that I become the same outwardly beautiful woman as I am on the inside. I do not want to be a haggard old woman and fear the early and mid-transition  because of this. I understand there is a means to the end, but I don't want to get stuck in the middle. Obviously I fear the unknown.

Thoughts?

There is a path to this place and the person you want to be.  It is slow, expensive, probably painful physically and emotionally, but a lot of it is achievable. 

Also, it can be done pretty much in private for at least the first year, by which I mean HRT, hair removal, weight loss if you need it, and other physical steps.  This will allow you to start walking the path, and when you get to the middle (as you refer to it), you can make the choice to continue forward or stop where you are.  But I wouldn't look at it as being stuck in the middle, since it's not really going to be like that. 

Julia, you are wise beyond your years and the positivity you provide to me, and the forum/universe in general is not without my high praise for it's merits. I am lucky that I have the means to aid in helping to the end. As I have said I have worked exceptionally hard within this persona over many years to achieve at a pretty high level. But this too has it's drawbacks; my "coming out" and full-time must be done only at a time it becomes almost unavoidable, I will need to hide the effects as I not only transition myself physically, but must transition socially (which may be harder, and take some time).

Once the weight loss, which is beginning, down 20 with 30 to come, and then the start of HRT, I will need to "beard" (funny use of words, as I transition my businesses to prepare for my transition. This community will find it very difficult to accept, I believe, so this needs to be done almost as an exit strategy.

Once it becomes obvious I can no longer hide the effects of my new persona and body, then I will embrace it 100% and certainly anticipate the tweaks, surgeries, wardrobe changes to make the change. But there are no certainties to what enormous conviction to a plan, and ample resources can accomplish. Again, great fears of the unknown.

Hi Allie

Two key points from your reply are worth commenting on.

Fear of the unknown is absolutely the right fear to have.  The accumulated years of family, friends and associates are important, and for me, their reaction has to be the biggest unknown until you test them.   The unknowns of becoming the person you've always wanted to be are a really much less unknown, since you already are that person.  Yes, you are going to have to lean some new ways to be,act, think and speak, but these again are latent inside you.  During the first months of my transition I described this part as "peeling away the boy" to expose the girl inside.   

The second point you refer to is conviction to a plan, and for those of us who are older, it is absolutely fundamental.  I did not need to plan the internal issues - I already had the conviction.  But I planned every aspect of my public transition from the four page guidance document I presented to my company through to trivialities such as when I intended to get my ears pierced.  I think this gradual modification of one's public persona allows people to adapt, even though they may not know what exactly they are adapting to.  By the time I came out, and it was only a 3 month period, the people who had seen me on a day-to-day basis were not really surprised.  Finally they had answers.