Jump to content
  • Welcome to the TransPulse Forums!

    We offer a safe, inclusive community for transgender and gender non-conforming folks, as well as their loved ones, to find support and information.  Join today!

Step Two


Guest Orva26

Recommended Posts

So today I went ahead and made an appointment with a GT. It isn't for 18 days. I would have made it sooner but I wanted to insure that I would actually have money when I go and see her. Doing this was not easy it literally took me from around 2pm to close to 4pm to work up the nerve to call her and as I told her the driving force behind that was thinking, "What do I gain from not talking to a GT? I get to go to work for another freaking week and hope this goes away?" It sort of is a big deal for me to do this, because even though it was never outright said my upbringing basically implied to me that seeking therapy is kind of an ultimate failing. Actually during my stupidly early attempt to bring this up with my father he basically told me he'd be hurt if I sought a therapist to help with this matter. :( But I'm guessing this type of apprehension on my part is natural.

Anyway I'm glad I did it and I hope the piece of mind I acquired from doing so and from the rest of today in general stays around. I've been dreaming about HRT and not stressing so much over why. I feel a tad upbeat and can function better almost as if I got a little bit of myself back.

This is a different therapist than the first one I called. Although I think she is good too the first one just doesn't seem ready for more clients, i.e. she doesn't really respond to things like email or voice messages, whereas the second one responded to the email I sent her last night this morning. She seems really good with a knowledge set that encompasses psychology, neurology, and biology and she considers gender variance to be a result of those three aspects of an individual. I am thinking she runs things with a kind of psychoanalytical approach as she asked me questions about my relationship to my parents and such.

She also said something that helped me out. She inquired as to my age because the TS group I mentioned in my email to her usually attracts people of a particular age bracket. When I told her I was 23 she explained all of that and then that there are periods in human life where neurological changes drive hormonal ones. Usually that shift is observed more in midlife but in recent years these hormonal paradigm shifts have been observed earlier. She mentioned something about parts of the brain ceasing to function as other parts become fully developed.

Not sure if I am getting this 100% right but it seems to make sense as to why this is sort of a big, "ah-ha!" moment for me. Obviously during puberty, biochemically parts of my brain that were like, "HELL YEAH TESTOSTERONE!" where really active and kind of in charge. But now that puberty is pretty much done with they have shut down/receded and what is active are other parts that are thinking with less male hormonal influence. Basically, I've been fetish/sexually expressing things because my brain was wired in a way where that was how it knew to express them. I'm not certain of it and I'm not going to dwell on it but, dang! It seems like one of my early inclinations that all the self-gratification and sexualize/fetishization was a coping mechanism could be right.

I think I might be able to relax a bit.

-Orva

Link to comment
  • Admin

Congrats on the appointment, Orva. You'll see that your fears and anxieties were misplaced, and everything will work out OK.

The G.T. sounds very experienced and competent, and hopefully you two will hit it off.

Be sure and write down any questions that you have for her, and perhaps an outline of things you want to cover, but let her lead the way.

She's been there before, while you haven't.

HUGS

Carolyn Marie

Link to comment
Guest KellyKat

It's gonna be interesting to see who can better analyse whom.

You or your GT. I'm already waiting for the posts!!! lol

That's great that you found one! Me... still looking.

Luv Kat :)

Link to comment
Guest PhoebeJoan

thats funny because I just had a chat to my GT as well, and my appointment is also in 18 days :blink:

I find its getting easier to come out to strangers(well, people experienced with GID anyway). I was the same a few months ago, it would often take me 2 hours to pick up the phone. So much wasted time!

I actually have gone through an endocrinologist who specialises in transgender management, and he has an excellent knowledge and experience on the subject. I asked him questions on everything I knew in regards to HRT, and he had familiar answers, which was very pleasing. I'll get my blood test results back next week, but apparently im in excellent health.

Pre-HRT, I feel quite miserable if im sitting idle and not progressing towards my transition in some way. A sense of momentum does help me relax a little more.

Orva, I can so totally relate to your last 2 paragraphs. I have just turned 22 myself, and that makes a lot of sense to me, looking back. Good luck with your GT, keep us updated :)

Hugs

Ruby

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Who's Online   4 Members, 0 Anonymous, 57 Guests (See full list)

    • Adrianna Danielle
    • awkward-yet-sweet
    • KatieSC
    • Mmindy
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      80.8k
    • Total Posts
      770.2k
  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      12,102
    • Most Online
      8,356

    Vikki
    Newest Member
    Vikki
    Joined
  • Today's Birthdays

    1. Ale975
      Ale975
      (27 years old)
    2. BillieB
      BillieB
      (65 years old)
    3. BrokenDays
      BrokenDays
      (34 years old)
    4. Bryson
      Bryson
      (25 years old)
    5. Jolie
      Jolie
  • Posts

    • KatieSC
      I used to have a really good therapist, however, she does not accept health insurance reimbursement fees as they are too low. I had to pay 130 per session. When she decided to jack the rates to 185 per hour, I cut bait. Without a doubt, counseling is very helpful. What concerns me greatly is that we are a vulnerable population. Unfortunately, we can easily be targeted for some pretty high fees. How many of us have been in the situation where our healthcare provider, surgeons, or counselors, have required cash payments? We get jammed as well by the health insurance companies as they often will not pay for items that could be essential to our well-being. It is my contention that our chances of being targeted for violence, death, or harassment, go up when we cannot easily blend in with the female population.    For those of us that are MTF, some of us are blessed with more feminine features, and many of us are not. We get the whammy of a larger skeleton, bigger hands, bigger feet, a beard, a deep voice, and masculine face. It takes a lot for some of us to be able to blend in. My belief is that the better we blend in, the better chance we have of not being targeted. In this, electrolysis, facial feminizing/gender affirming facial surgery, voice/speech therapy with voice feminization/gender affirming voice surgery, and body contouring are all potentially lifesaving. Unfortunately, many of the insurance companies deem the procedures as cosmetic, and yet there is no cosmetic that fixes all of these issues.    If you pay your money, you can get anything you want in this world. The sad reality is that for us, many of these procedures would enhance our lives tremendously, yet we face ongoing battles with our very existence. Yeah, an empathetic therapist helps, but is it just the concept of reasonable empathy at a reasonable cost? When my therapist jacked her rates to 185 per hour, I said enough is enough. Your mileage may vary.
    • awkward-yet-sweet
      I don't think the temperature matters as much.  Think about how gases like CO2 are stored in cylinders, and they are basically the same in summer or winter.  Any gas becomes liquid under enough pressure.  What does matter is the strength of the pressure vessel.  If exposed to excess external heat, pressure increases and can burst a tank or a pipe.  Household propane tanks are often painted white or silver and have safety release valves, because sunlight can heat a tank enough to cause a significant increase in internal pressure, even though the contents remain liquid. 
    • awkward-yet-sweet
      It has been a long week, and I think this weekend is going to be pretty busy.  The high school is having their graduation later today.  Although we don't have any grads in our family this year, my husband is going because he's involved with the school.  And tonight there's the torchlight ceremony for the county cadets who are finishing their program, and the reading of assignments for the new seniors.  One of my stepkids will be a senior this year.  She's talented, and will be assigned a squad leader position.  My husband is really proud of her, and she's well-liked by her peers even though she's very quiet and serious.    I might get to go on a trip to Texas this week.  The storms that hit Houston caused a lot of electrical damage, so no doubt the utilities in that area will be ordering stuff from my husband's company.  When the big hurricane hit Florida in 2022, we made several trips there with badly-needed equipment, and the entire transportation department was involved in the first convoy.  When he travels, I usually want to go along, since 1-on-1 time is kind of rare for us. 
    • Mmindy
    • Lydia_R
      Maybe surface tension?   I was in a political debate yesterday and it got way too focused on social stuff and I just had to steer the conversation back to how natural gas transitions to a liquid under pressure.  One of the people I was debating had a career working in that field and it was a good opportunity to expose stuff like that.  He mentioned that it isn't just pressure, it is temperature too.  So then I mentioned how the lines are running underground and asked how that played a role in it.  He came back saying that natural gas is a liquid under pressure.  I guess I didn't get a straight answer on that, but it did move my thinking one step down the road.  Perhaps I should have been more direct with him and asked him at what temperature and pressure.  Is there a chart?   I feel people would be better off if they paid more attention to the objects in their environment instead of focusing on some of the things that we hear so much of in the news.  People are pretty clueless as to how much trigonometry plays a role in so many things in our society.  Even land surveyors don't really use it anymore because programmers locked it away in a function.  Much like how cascading style sheets (CSS) is a wrapper for math.  I wonder what former president Trump thinks about all of that?  He must have some knowledge of how his buildings are constructed, right?  There certainly is a part of me that thinks he is just putting on a show about all of this.  Perhaps I'm wrong though.  All kinds of people in the world.
    • Jani
      Me as well.  I can use my left hand for many tasks though.
    • Jani
      Hello Jennifer and welcome back.  I find New England to be a great place to live.  I have a number of acquaintances and friends in Maine and I love the state.  It seems you are doing well.     Hugs,  Jani
    • MirandaB
      Oh, my "maybe this person is an egg" story is the (male presenting) piercing person and I discussed body hair removal methods, he says he doesn't want any hair except on his head, which is what I said during a couple hair removal sessions before and just after the egg cracked.     
    • Karen Carey
      I, too, am lucky.  Here in the UK I have a great therapist, a fully supportive GP, and a psychiatrist and endo who look after me and my needs.  I found the therapist on Psychology Today.
    • Lydia_R
      Over the last few years of being on this site and going through medical transition, I've come to own the M->F identification.  Funny, I made a typo of M->T.  It is a curiosity if I'll ever put Gender: Female on this site.  It is my intention to be there someday.   Right now, because of career stuff and a high stress event with an electric hair clipper last fall, I'm feeling much more masculine than I would like.  I think that once I make some decent headway with my third career, I'll settle into a more feminine feeling.   I never really considered gender very much.  I certainly always used a feminine appearance as my presentation goal. I think that when I was young, I briefly had the idea of transitioning, but I convinced myself quickly that medical transition would be a bad outcome, so I put all those feelings and ideas in the closet for decades.  I'm still very apprehensive about medical transition.  I've always taken health to be a high priority for me.  I wrote a book last December about my fears of it all and my conclusion ultimately is that sometimes there is more to life than being a pillar of health.  It's important to take some chances if that is where your heart takes you.
    • Lydia_R
    • Lydia_R
    • Ivy
    • Ivy
      Uhmm…  Yeah, ha ha.
    • Vidanjali
      Wonderful news. 
  • Upcoming Events

Contact TransPulse

TransPulse can be contacted in the following ways:

Email: Click Here.

To report an error on this page.

Legal

Your use of this site is subject to the following rules and policies, whether you have read them or not.

Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
DMCA Policy
Community Rules

Hosting

Upstream hosting for TransPulse provided by QnEZ.

Sponsorship

Special consideration for TransPulse is kindly provided by The Breast Form Store.
×
×
  • Create New...