9 • THE LAURELS GENDER IDENTITY CLINIC VISIT 02

Future me here *waves* It’s over six years since I wrote this diary entry, and rereading it I’ve noticed something. I kept referring to OCD as My OCD, and Social Anxiety as My Social Anxiety. Something I learnt from Sam Schaeffer’s iOvercameAnxietycourse, was to disassociate from the Social Anxiety. I was going to edit this diary entry, removing the words My, but I thought, No! In 2014 I did see it as My Social Anxiety, so I’m going to leave it, but I realised how important it is just to remove that lil word of MY; Once you do that, it loses it’s power over you.

*end of future me*

I’m writing this as I sit on a train about to go to my second Gender Clinic appointment. I’ve been excited for this since I left my Gender Identity Clinic Visit 1 but now I’m feeling slightly nervous. I don’t know why, I can’t wait to see my therapist again, I want to know how her cats doing for starters lol I don’t know what this appointment will be about, maybe that’s why I’m nervous, I hope to talk about the last few weeks, and how I’ve told all my family about being Transgender since our last visit.

So, I’m nervous but excited, which I remember someone saying means you’re doing the right thing and pushing yourself to evolve. I’m off to do a 30 minute meditation now before the train arrives at my destination. Omm.

Her cats doing good! I’m sat on the train going home now :)

That was really interesting; A nice relaxing chat again, she is the nicest person I’ve ever met, I want to take her home with me. You can tell she genuinely cares about you, I might ask if she’d let me do a portrait drawing of her lol We talked about the past few weeks/months sine the last appointment, she actually said I looked different…looked happier. That was nice, I’m certainly feeling better on the inside.

We were talking and I must have done a hand gesture, because she said “Look at your nails, they’re beautiful, show me.” She asked what colours I paint them, and how her nails always break, she then did a “You go girl!” look and motion with her head lol That was so funny, I think that moment will stick in my mind forever! We were talking about any issues I’ve had in the past and I mentioned OCD, I used to suffer from it badly, it made me do some pretty bonkers things but last year I heard a quote “Something bad might happen, but it might not.”

That quote stuck in my head and ultimately kick started my ability to overcome my crippling OCD. I became self aware of the OCD thoughts the moment they started to show up in my head, and I would stop and ask myself, does this OCD thought make sense? I would say, “Something bad might happen, but it might not …” if the OCD thought didn’t make sense, I would challenge it and do the opposite. It became like a little game I would play whenever I felt the urge to do an OCD thing that wasn’t good, this went on for a few months until I was able to just let it be and forget about it, the only types of OCD left now are what I consider the useful types, such as sorting all my coloured pencils into colour order :)

We also spoke about my childhood, and I said how me and my Sister often say we have no idea where Mum and Dad were while we were kids, its like me and my Sister were looking after each other on our own lol I mentioned about my Sister teaching me to ride a bike when I was little, we were at the top of this hill and mySister was holding the back of the bike as I balanced on it, down the hill together we went, but when I looked round she was still at the top of the hill! I had gone all the way down the hill on my own, and then when I saw what she had done I crashed into a bush lol That’s how my Sister rolls, you gotta learn lol I did learn, because I can now ride a bike! Thanks Sister :)

We spoke about future plans in regard my gender, and I said how I feel pretty content with how things are at the moment, I spoke about how my Art and Femininity are finally becoming one, working in harmony, but in the future who knows. We spoke about hormones and how this would effect having children, she asked about that and I realised I had never really entertained the idea of kids. I don’t really think kids are for me, I’ve always been a free spirit, but then, never say never. She mentioned how your sperm can be frozen for the future, so children could still be possible, even if you start hormones.

At the moment I just want to continue seeing and talking with her, as she is helping me greatly and makes me feel very relaxed. The time flew by, at the end she mentioned about a Transgender Support Group I can attend for free, where both male to female, and female to male, Transgender and non-binary people come together once a month to talk. This would be, and has been, a dream of mine for years. Just to be able to talk with other people going through the same issues I’ve had all my life; I’d also be so interested to see if I would still suffer from social anxiety around transgender people, plus I dream of making some real life Transgender friends.

I had my fifth Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) session this morning as well, and we’re just starting the ‘challenge your thoughts and behaviours’ part, this is where you have to put yourself in situations that make you feel anxious, so as to study and learn from the experience, instead of avoiding them at all costs. The timing, like so many things this past few years, is perfect, and feels like destiny again!

I think I’m destined to go to this Transgender Support Group to test the stuff I’ve been doing in CBT. I’m going to force myself to go, face my fears, like my CBT counsellor said, “Even if all you do is show up, you’ve still succeeded…” very much like Art, doesn’t matter if the drawing doesn’t turn out good, just learn from it and keep trying, everything is a learning experience. I’ve decided this is my Transgender goal for January, to go to this meet up :) I did it look > Transgender Support Group Visit 1 :)

A pretty cool little thing happened today, at CBT in the morning, as I was walking out I saw a Squirrel. I stopped and just watched him nibbling away at his tasty looking nut, before he bounced off, and I bounced off too on my way home. Very rarely do I see Squirrels, so it was nice to see him…but then, when I walked out of the Gender Clinic, I saw another Squirrel! I stopped and looked at him too, I’m a firm believer that animals bring with them meaning, and it turns out –

” THE ANIMAL SYMBOLISM OF SQUIRRELS ADDRESSES OUR ABILITY TO EXPRESS OURSELVES IN SOCIAL SETTINGS “

How cool is that, all of today I have been focusing on my social anxiety with therapists, and then these squirrels show up! I’m going to meditate on the squirrel to find his personal message for me. This encounter also inspired me to do a drawing of a Squirrel :)

Visit three took place on 8th May 2015 and was the ‘today is a nice day’ visit