50 • THE LAURELS GENDER IDENTITY CLINIC VISIT 17

Future me here *waves* I always used to take photos on these train rides to and from the clinic, but mostly didn’t include them in the diary entries, but I added a lil photo of me on the train wearing my necklace and pink nails to this one, it’s weird seeing me with all that facial hair now, you forget how much you change over time  … funny! So glad I took these photos, in fact, I’m going to add photos to all the other Gender Identity Clinic entries as well :)

*end of future me*

At the train station again. Only this time, as me. Today is the 13th of April, 2017, and I’m off to the Gender Identity Clinic for visit number 17, as Sophie … for the first time ever. Even after the last visit, only a few weeks ago, I would never have imagined in my wildest dreams I’d be seeing my gender therapist as my true self so soon. Just shows you can’t predict life.

I’m sat on the train platform a bit cold, a bit nervous, but a lot excited, and very proud. I’ve dreamt about this day for so long, it seemed impossible, but here I am, finally doing it. It’s going to be interesting to see how I feel around my gender therapist as Sophie. Will I act differently?

I’m sat on the train now, and honestly. I just want to get there. Feeling more nervous but all I have to do is get there and I succeed. Doesn’t matter what happens after that :) I’m going to go and chill to some trance music now, relax and enjoy the journey as they say … the train journey :)

LOOK AT YOU, YOU’RE SO GLAMOROUS

That’s what my Gender Therapist said to me :) Was funny though. She walked past me three times looking at the clock on the wall. A look on her face of, where is he? In the end I waved at her and she said, “Oh my god, I didn’t recognise you. You’d have been sat there all day.” lol

I’m kind of speechless. I don’t know what to say.

It was a session spent mostly talking about the mind, and how the mind lies. My mind has been going into overdrive lately. The more I push myself out of my comfort zone, by being Sophie in public, the more my mind obsesses over all my faults, being so negative. It’s blowing all my faults way out of proportion, and I’m struggling to deal with it if I’m being honest. It gets to the point sometimes where I feel super depressed.

I can see it’s all lies, but it’s hard to stay positive when the mind gets going. My gender therapist was so nice though, as she always is. Saying how glamorous I looked, how dreamy my eyes looked, even comparing them to Anime eyes … that made me smile so much, the thought I have anime eyes, heehee. The worrying thing at the moment is that the negative thoughts are always bubbling away. I told her how beautiful I’ve always found her, but than she started listing off all her faults, albeit acknowledging that it doesn’t matter. Maybe we all have faults. It’s not your faults that’s the issue, it’s how you view them. It’s up to you if you’re going to let them bring you down or not.

She suggested I write down where these thoughts are coming from, to try and work out what it is I’m afraid of. As well as that, she recommended compiling a list of positive things about myself, to counter these negative beliefs. She said I’m currently looking in the mirror trying to find faults. Focus on looking at the beautiful things.

As we said our good byes, we hugged, and she said it’s time for me to start practising loving myself.

She’s so lovely!

I guess it’s like so many things in life, it’s all about time. Learning to love myself is just going to take time. In time it will all come together and I will be me. Not perfect me, but me, which actually will be perfect :) I’m so proud of myself though. Proud of getting a Taxi as me. Proud of getting the Train as me. Proud of walking around Exeter shopping as me.

Thank you Universe for today, it was beautiful.

UPDATE

It’s currently the 20th of May 2017, a month after I wrote this diary entry, and I’ve been reading a book called ‘Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers‘. The book was recommended to me by someone at the Not Alone Plymouth support group. Now, the beautiful thing is, this book is in sync with what my therapist was saying, almost perfectly. It just adds an extra layer on top of what she said, which I’ve found pretty eye opening. For the past few years I’ve been trying to get rid of the negative thoughts in my mind, but this book has changed the way I see things.

In the book, she explains how the mind lies, and how negative thoughts are always going to be there, and will only get stronger as you face your fears. It’s the same for everybody. But, what you have to do, is basically out talk the negativity. Just what my gender therapist said when she recommended writing down a list of positive things about myself. In the book Susan explains how you don’t ever get rid of the negative thoughts. You just bombard your mind with positive thoughts, so while the negative stuff still exists, you just keep piling positives in there until in the end, the negative thoughts will be out numbered. I’ve been practising this for the past week and it does seem to help. I’ve also started waking up to motivational speeches, something else Susan suggests in the book.

I’m currently resting, as I experienced some bad transgender abuse while out as Sophie, and it affected me a lot more than I expected. So right now, I’m focused on reading this book and trying to get my mind to a stronger place, so that I can love myself enough to deal better with future transgender abuse. I just find it magical how this book entered my life at the perfect moment, even the abuse I experienced, which left me suicidal and seeking medical help, I can see was perfectly timed. The universe is so epic how it puts everything together.

Visit eighteen took place on the 15th of June 2017, and was the ‘hope‘ visit