Our Dangerous Times and Help From Our Therapists

[emeraldmountain2]

As we all know, trans people are under vicious attack in the United States and other countries, so much so that there are laws limiting our public lives, access to medical care, plans by the right wing to bring this oppression to the federal level, etc. There are actual American citizens who are refugees in their own country, needing to move out of wicked states. This is reality.

 

People are literally worried about genocide towards trans people happening in the US.

 

How would people here expect their therapist to react to this reality and a client's fears?

 

Thanks.

[emeraldmountain2]

If you don't have a therapist, at least how would you expect a therapist to react and respond to the client's fears?

[Penrose-Pauling]

I've been through two of them in the past year, the newer one I haven't gotten to know very well but still. 

My old one who I had up until a month or so ago had just told me to focus on what I could control which, I guess was alright advice but it still didn't help seeing as the state we live in quite literally banned my healthcare (I'm seventeen and the ban was for minors so I had to go to a different state to get testosterone) during the time I went to see her. 

I have been very involved and tuned in on this and she knew this.

 

My newer one hasn't said much on it though, but I'm sure well talk about it. 

 

 

[VickySGV]

First Rule -- Live your daily life where you are and as you are.  I have little to fear from my own neighbors, they have gotten to know me, and live beside me in trust.  The same is true for you and your neighbors. Things go sour for me from your neighbors and the other way around, but we do give each other a small hope of safety by being friends with one another.

 

Second Rule --  The loud and roaring people are the actual minority of people we will meet.  Take the news and even the legal stuff and divide it by 100 or 1000 to bring its true size into being and realize that while you need to be aware and watchful, you do not need to be fearful which is what the others want us to be.  This is called being wise and needs you to put aside a part of your mind for that wisdom.

 

Rule Number 3 -- We do have advocates aware of the situations and working to correct them by all the means they can find, and they do have successes to share with us.  The other groups such as physicians, pharmacists, and therapists also have their advocacy organizations as well, since they are under the same attacks as we are by being themselves in their  chosen professions which have ethical rules of providing care and not harm such as these attempts at legislation.  So the legislations will  be challenged on their behalf which favors us as well.

 

I have a bunch more stuff which I could comment on, and which I have put together as training for supporters and people who would support us if they knew more.  There is more in our good future than the baloney in our immediately present days.

[Audrey]

I think it is very easy to go into a place of fear - to withdraw, to hide, to go back to the closet, to deny, to repress. I believe that the point of the extreme positions and proposals is quite simply to create fear, with the hoped-for result of making the community somehow less visible or influential. Of course, this fear will not work in the long run. Most of us know fear very well and have come face-to-face with it in our lives and journeys. I would hope that any support professional understands how fear and anxiety are a part of the experience and would be in a position to create a safe space to talk about and overcome them in therapy.

 

Love,

~Audrey.

[emeraldmountain2]

Thank you all. Very good thoughts.

[emeraldmountain2]

How would you feel if the therapist downplayed the concerns outlined in my original post?

[VickySGV]

9 minutes ago, emeraldmountain2 said:

How would you feel if the therapist downplayed the concerns outlined in my original post?

 

The items I put up in my initial reply up above, are not downplaying your concerns, they are pointing you in the directions of a reality that you can find and can use daily to help cope with life, a therapist will use that type of approach.  You will not be put down, unless you are hopelessly rooted there and cannot see how your therapist is directing you to things you can handle. The word "if" is a serious roadblock that you are placing there to harm yourself.  Lets take the "what is" above the "what if" and you will get further along without injury.

[emeraldmountain2]

Thank you for your help @VickySGV