Okay, so, I think I might have gone about things slightly screwy: correct me if I'm wrong here.
I have had a therapist over the past couple of years that I have not seen regularly, because of her high cost. We did meet up about once every other month last year, and then my visits with her kind of petered off. She did not know anything about my gender issues, but she did superficially know about my feminine side and my desire to be more feminine, and that I was also questioning my sexual identity.
After a lot of soul searching, I finally admitted to myself that I couldn't live this way anymore. I needed to transition. At that point, I had not been seeing her regularly, due to my financial situation. I decided to see a local trans-support group and come out to them first. This, I found, was the most therapeutic thing for me that I could have done. I felt right at home. After the first few visits to the group, I found my fear completely vanished. This was my family.
Through the support of my brother and my friends, I kept attending the meetings for many months, and through the meetings I was referred to an endocrinologist and began hormone therapy. This particular doctor did
not require a letter of recommendation from a therapist to begin HRT. Instead, he went by informed consent and grilled me on several questions related to transitioning and why I was doing this. He seemed reasonably responsible with screening his patients.
Ever since I started HRT, I've been so happy.
I saw my therapist again a month ago and we discussed what had happened, and she was supportive of me too. She wants to see me more, and me seeing her is only slightly limited by my financial situation, being a starving college student / artist of sorts. My family has alluded to the possibility of them fronting the money for the therapy, but we're still in talks about that.
I have a definite plan of attack with my transition. I have friends who support me, as well as some family members. The only thing that kind of bugs me is that I feel like I
should be seeing my therapist more regularly. I don't doubt in my mind that this is what I want for myself, but I'm hounded by the idea that I might not be doing this right compared to other trans-women? I mean, I feel like I'm doing this right by
my standards. I have the support group. I have HRT. I know when I'm going full-time, and I have an idea of what I want for myself after that. I'm worried that because I didn't get a letter of recommendation for HRT...I wonder, will this hurt my ability to be approved for SRS later? Should I be seeing a therapist more regularly?
What's the right answer? Is there a right answer?
Am I overcomplicating this? Probably.
