I went to see my therapist today.  My 4th session I believe.  I really felt that up until today I had been making good progress.  Well, I say progress.  I didn't go in there with the belief that there was anything wrong with me other than my genetics.  I had initially hoped she'd be able to ask me some questions and listen to my story and say, "yep, you're transgender," or, "nope, you're just crazy."  By the time the first appointment came and I had already pretty much determined that I was transgender on my own, the need for the appointments shifted from affirmation to just a necessary milestone for HRT approval.

The first 3 appointments went by pretty well with me telling my story and explaining the emotional turmoil of having to present male and the the little joys that things like earrings and painted nails brought me.  Pretty much everything I've posted here up until now.  I even printed off some of my posts and gave them to her.  About a week ago she was just about to write me a letter to my endocrinologist when she said to me, "let's talk about this in your next session on the 1st." (today).  So I went in there today thinking we were going to discuss the details of what the letter would contain.  NOPE.

And then my stupid self went and had a huge bout of depression yesterday that I felt the need to bring up b/c I don't feel happy and I'm not sure what will make me happy because I haven't really had any feelings of happiness over the last 15 years!  Thankfully she didn't recommend antidepressants, but I feel like this has taken me two giant steps backward because she wants to work on getting me over the depression before committing to writing my letter.  Well, in my opinion the HRT will help with the mother-effing depression!

UGH!  My endo appointment isn't until the end of November anyways, so maybe it's no big deal for her to make me wait for this letter, but it's got me half tempted to start trying to find another therapist or a gynecologist or to go to planned parenthood and play the "informed consent" trump card I've been carrying around.  I just feel like enough is freaking enough already!  I don't feel it's unreasonable to want my preferred treatment for my condition this badly, is it?  If I was in an accident and needed two pints of blood, they wouldn't say, "oh, we stopped the bleeding, just get some rest and drink some orange juice, your body will make some more blood in a couple days and you'll be fine."  NO!  They'd freaking give me a transfusion!

This doesn't sound right at all to me. If you're transgender and not doing something about it then that's more than likely the cause of depression. There's plenty of people who experience that, myself included.

I believe the purpose of therapy is to help you decide for yourself if your transgender, and you shouldn't expect the therapist to tell you. You tell them. Also, if you can't be open with the therapist then there's no point in seeing them, unless you just need to get the HRT letter. Hiding things is only going to defeat the entire point of therapy. Since you can get informed consent, and you know you're transgender, what the purpose of seeing this therapist?

I'd say do the informed consent and keep on with a therapist if you feel the need to talk. It doesn't sound like she's doing this right  though, so perhaps you need to find another one?

I saw a therapist before starting HRT, just just so I could be sure in my own mind of what I was doing since it a pretty big step. It took me a year to decide, but that was me not the therapist, and once I decided I started immediately.

More recently I saw a psych since I'm stuck in the early stages of transition and it was driving me crazy. I had no need for any letters letters which freed me to be able to talk openly about everything. I decided that if I ever needed letters either the psych would write them or I'd go elsewhere, which in the spirit of being open I also I told him. Apart from checking at the start that I wasn't crazy and it was just being transgender, we basically talked about what I wanted to talk about. It helped a lot, although increasing my HRT did wonders as well. I'm pretty positive about the benefits of talking to a therapist or psych, but its got to be the right person.

Not directly related, but this website has a number of interesting papers.

http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm

Therapists often don't like to rush things tell they are sure your ready. As much I wanted things done by certain points never meant they would be. You can always choose a different therapist if your unhappy with the help they providing. Remember your in charge of your care. You also always ask why they are not dealing with it now too. Good luck and Hugs.
Mariah

It just feels like I fell victim to a bait and switch tactic.

I went in there saying, "I think I'm transgender, and I'm doing this and this and this and it really feels wonderful," for a couple sessions.

Then at the next session said, "I'm ready to start HRT, but I need a letter from you for my endo, here's what it should contain...blah blah."

So she said, "OK, I'll be glad to write that for you."

Now she's saying she's not ready to write it...  I got my hopes up for a couple weeks only to have them dashed to pieces.

I've already called Planned Parenthood and a Gynecologist in the area to see what my options really are (had to leave messages at both, grrrrr).  I know I won't be on HRT by the end of the week or anything, but I feel like I have to DO SOMETHING or I'll go stir crazy.  Sitting idly by while others determine my fate isn't my style.  I need to have some level of influence or control, even if it's only doing research for now.  Moving forward one step at a time on my own terms is better than being pushed around by somebody else's....

Woot!  Got an appointment with Planned Parenthood for about a week and a half from now.  They confirmed that they offer TG services and asked me if I had a preferred name and would I be there for MTF or FTM treatment.  They sound pretty legit and helpful so far.  When asked what I needed specifically to see them for, I just said for a general explanation of the HRT process and so on and so forth and she acted like that was a pretty normal response to that question.

I'm oh so excited to get started making progress again after this setback.

When I started treatment, I had two hard fast rules I went by.
1. Always tell the doctors the truth even if it is painful.
2. Be open to what ever solution the doctors find even if it doesn't include reassignment.
I think I was over a year with the doctor that wrote my first prescription but it was a matter of wearing him down. He couldn't find anything wrong with me other than the fact I wanted to be a girl. The worst outcomes I have seen were people who rushed the process to much. I spent two years full time before surgery. Yes it was money and not wisdom that delayed the surgery but that second year made it clear to me no matter what, I would never miss the old role and the only path for me was forward. No longer was the drive to have surgery emotional but it was logical and based on hard evidence.

I know what you are feeling but you have to be careful if you want an outcome like mine where I still can't get that smile off my face.

Hey Tristan

On balance, I don't think that you are doing badly at this point in time.  In many places it's quite a major hurdle getting to your HRT prescription, and we do have to grin and bear those months leading up to it.  The day you get your HRT meds in your hand will be one of the sweetest of your transition - the keys to a new place.

I do believe that a good therapist needs to be relatively sure of a diagnosis before writing a letter, and often enough I think they need to dig for a while before they are convinced.  After being here at Susan's for over a year, I've seen a fair share of people whose biggest issue to resolve with a therapist is definitely not their gender, but something else, maybe related or maybe not.  In such cases a good therapist should take some time to prioritise and help a patient with these priorities.  I'm not saying that this is your case, but I can understand why a therapist might push back their timelines as they advance with therapy.

Julia

It just comes back to that feeling of betrayal. Don't tell me you're going to do something, let me get my hopes up, and then change your mind.  I'll be mentioning that to my therapist next week.  We can't have an open and honest relationship if I don't voice my feelings about her, even if it ruins our ability to work together.

Quote from: Tristan on June 02, 2015, 11:16:03 PM
It just comes back to that feeling of betrayal. Don't tell me you're going to do something, let me get my hopes up, and then change your mind.  I'll be mentioning that to my therapist next week.  We can't have an open and honest relationship if I don't voice my feelings about her, even if it ruins our ability to work together.

Oh, I totally understand!  It happened to me too, and it is frustrating beyond belief.  Stick with both your psychologist and the planned parenthood thing for the moment, since at some point you may need to return to having a shrink to get approval for things like SSR.  No need to burn bridges 

xxx
J

QuoteIt just comes back to that feeling of betrayal. Don't tell me you're going to do something, let me get my hopes up, and then change your mind.  I'll be mentioning that to my therapist next week.  We can't have an open and honest relationship if I don't voice my feelings about her, even if it ruins our ability to work together.

You're absolutely right about this.  One of the basic things that should happen in therapy is learning that it's OK to talk with someone directly about how they make you feel, and learning good ways to do that.  If telling her how you feel about something she did ruins your ability to work together, she's not a competent therapist, and you should run, not walk, to find someone better.

So this could be an opportunity to step forward, not backward, and I hope it turns out that way for you.

I know she wants to work with me, I just don't think she really knows how.  I found out that, while she has been trained in gender related issues, I am her first transgender patient.  That makes me scared that she's going to school on my dime.

She's very nice, and she calls me Kristina, she's really trying, I just don't think she's aware of how to treat us.  Then again, I don't know how to treat us, so I don't know if she knows or not!  I just don't know what to talk about when I go in there and I don't feel like she's directing me very well, and we only get 45 minutes which isn't nearly enough time to cover any ground at all, argh, it's just frustrating.

I guess it's just time to lay out my feelings from this "betrayal" without condescendingly belittling her abilities somehow, lol.

I got some perfume I ordered in the mail yesterday, and it's divine!  Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb Eau de Parfum.  I really think it's helping to lift my spirits today.  I feel like I'm back on track somehow.

Well, I told her how disappointed I was and she said she could tell something was bothering me when I left her last week.  It went well, we came to an understanding.  So now I think I'm officially on the therapy wagon.  I didn't tell her about my Planned Parenthood visit coming up though.  Things are looking better I think.

Congratulations. It takes courage to stand up for yourself like that, and you should be proud. Finding out early that you can talk about this kind of problem with your therapist is a good way to start such a relationship.

I hope things continue to go well for you!

I pushed my psych very hard at the start. If it wasn't going to work out I'd rather find out early on before I waste too much time and money. I can be quite challenging sometimes and there no point in pretending to be someone else or putting up with any crap when I'm not going to later. I wasn't after letters, I just needed some help. It all worked out though and I believe we have a better relationship for it.

Eek!  I went on a business trip to another site out of town on Tuesday.  At this site is where our HR department is headquartered.  So.... I took the opportunity to talk to the HR Manager in person instead of calling her over the phone.  It's a bit early, but I didn't know when I'd be down there again.  The last time was 2 years ago!

The conversation went very well, she didn't skip a beat for the whole conversation and asked some very good questions I thought, so I took the opportunity to educate her a bit.  Apparently they're already in the process of drafting revisions to their Equal Employment and Anti-Discrimination policies to include all the "new" LGBTQ verbiage that's become so mainstream lately.  It's a long road ahead of me, and I'm tying to get in touch with a friend of a friend who came out at work and went to her HR department armed with a whole slew of proposed policy changes and needed accommodations so that they didn't have to stumble through it, she just told them what they were going to do for her, lol.  Hopefully I can get her list of changes so I can propose them to my own HR department as needed.

The HR Manager also said she'd look into their health plan to ensure all my needs are met!  From what I can tell that includes coverage for hormones and SRS!  FFS and BA would still be cosmetic and not covered though it seems from what I've read so far.  So I've started saving my pennies...

We didn't discuss a timeline or anything because it could be 6 months, 2 years, more, less, or somewhere in between before I "need" to transition at work.  It'll probably be when that point of male-fail starts happening.  I just won't know until I start hormones and see where that train takes me.

I feel very fortunate to have an HR department that is committed to doing everything they can for me it seems.

Oh, and I'll be coming out to my first co-worker tomorrow.  We're having lunch together.  She's a very smart person so she's already put some of it together, I'm just not sure how much yet, lol.  But I like her and trust her and I need some good girlfriends 

And I know this post wasn't related to therapy, but I didn't feel the need to start a whole new thread, but maybe I should, what do you think? 

P.s. my next therapy session is scheduled for a week and a half from now.

P.p.s.  I missed a phone call from my endocrinologist at 5:30 pm on Monday.  They didn't leave a message.  Tried calling them back immediately, but it was after hours and their answering service is utterly useless.  Called them back the next day and they said, "We had an opening for a new patient appointment, but we couldn't get up with you so we moved on to the next person on the list and gave it to them.  You're still on the list so we'll call you again if another appointment opens up."  I wanted to smash them in the face for calling me after hours so I couldn't call them back!!!

Quote from: Tristan on June 11, 2015, 10:52:14 AM
I'm tying to get in touch with a friend of a friend who came out at work and went to her HR department armed with a whole slew of proposed policy changes and needed accommodations so that they didn't have to stumble through it, she just told them what they were going to do for her, lol.  Hopefully I can get her list of changes so I can propose them to my own HR department as needed.

This is exactly the right thing to do, in my opinion, as there is no better guide than someone who is going through the process, and can properly recommend how to accommodate transgender needs .  I believe that if you bring HR a solution rather than a problem they are significantly more collaborative and receptive.

xxx
J