Good evening, (for you there,) Deniz.
Yep, some therapists are better than others, but, like all professionals some of us are more willing to follow the tried path, the one with precedent and tired old saws about what something or someone MUST be, rather than understanding that each time we talk with another human being that we are seeing and experiencing someone entirely, in so many ways, different than anyone else we have ever spoken with before.
Perhaps, the "top therapist in Athens" has become too used to working at the top. Perhaps he's forgotten that your life and your dreams, your way-of-being is entirely different from others he has seen before. It happens in my profession; it happens a lot. Some of us look at the 'book,' the way it happened before and we lose the possibility that this one, all ones, are different.
I don't know what your practice of law includes: whether you defend and if so whom, etc. But, I imagine you know the importance of looking at the facts and the personalities in the case that you have now. Sometimes we can apply insights from the past, but I think its harmful to our clients should we somehow imagine that they are the people, and the events, we may have seen or read about in the past. Therapy, like law, requires creativity and awareness of change and nuance.
Like a lawyer who doesn't recognize an aspect of a case she hasn't seen before, a therapist must recognize aspects of a case that show her a different method, or application of an old method with some changes, is needed in this case. Your therapist hasn't done that.
You're not only being asked to leave a boyfriend are you? You're being asked to leave a new and wonderful, in so many ways, life. I don't blame you for feeling that you do not want to do that. None of us would.
So, you've changed your life to be with George and now you're wondering if you should change it again to be without George. But, being without George also leaves you without those 20-30 people you had made a large part of your life. They only know Deniz, they don't know a 'gay-lawyer in Athens with a male name.'
If I were you, I'd be against changing that as well. Like you, safety would take a back-seat for me to that wonderful feeling of having a life and having people know me as me instead of a
transvesti.But, the situation doesn't seem entirely without promise. You've postponed the surgery until you are out of emotional stress. Although a surgery date and preparing for it, working out your cases to make space in your schedule, and other things like that are also going to cause you emotional stress.
Being without anyone to share your fear and
angst with in-person will also cause you a lot of emotional stress.
How do you work a case for a client? Do you just leave the file in a drawer for two months and show up in court without having studied the case at all? Do you simply use your creative ability and your train of thought in that moment to argue? Or do you read and look for ways to have your client win her suit? Ways that maybe you have to use some creative new fashion to win?
I think you can apply that strategy to your own life as well, my dear. I think you can find a way to make this work. It won't be easy, but I believe you can do so. And if it doesn't work out as you'd like, I think you can still be safe, still have friends, a lover, a husband, still have a life as a woman. I think that the struggle to make your way through this sane and healthy will show you even more strength and ability than you already believe you have.
Because you are a woman, no? What other kind of life can you possibly lead? You are not a
transvesti -- certainly not in the way the Athenian top therapist believed. No sex work and alientation for you, dear. If that were your lot you'd have never won over George's family, or George. You are a woman, Deniz.
You will live the rest of your life the way a woman lives her life. You will find a way to work for what you want, to be who you are and find contentment and joy in it.
Put down the despair for a bit and allow yourself to breathe. Allow yourself to be Deniz and you will begin to see opportunities, ways to get through this depression and make this occur.
And if it shouldn't; you will have learned that you are much stronger, more creative and more secure within yourself than you have ever believed.
None of us ever lives alone. You have a great energy and power within you. A wonderful intellect and best, a goal: to be yourself and a wonderful personality (you have shown that truth by simply what you've accomplished to have George and his family love you, want you to be a part of them, their family.) That skill and that personality, that heart hasn't disappeared.
Your willingness to see it, to embrace it, to help it grow have gone to sleep due to despair and
angst. You can re-awaken them, and will. You will not be alone, because people do and will love you, just for the wonderful qualities that live within you.
Like you say, you are strong, intelligent, creative, compassionate and brave and very much alive. Use those things because they are wonderful and powerful gifts you have been given.
Nichole
