69 • THE LAURELS GENDER IDENTITY CLINIC VISIT 26

*waves* future me here, Genital Reassignment Surgery. You know, it’s now 2021 and I still haven’t done it. I did get an operation date for this month, but I had to cancel it as I was in the middle of moving. The ball (pardon the pun) is now in my court. I have to decide once and for all, do I want this surgery or not? I’m about 80% no now, but there is still a slight feeling of wanting to do it still.

It’s hard sometimes to work out what feelings are fear based, and which are intuition. The following photo was from April 2018, and I feel like it sums up the journey of life perfectly.

*end of future me*

I wrote the following diary entry on the 19th of April 2018, the day of my 26th visit to the Gender Identity Clinic to see my therapist …

Beautiful sunny day today. I’m relaxed. No idea what todays session with my therapist will be like, but so much has happened since the last visit; I seem to say that every time.

I managed to finally start going to work as me :) It happened so quickly in the end, and wasn’t anywhere near as scary as I feared … in fact, it was exciting lol I’ve hand wrote a diary entry about it but haven’t uploaded it yet, when I do I will update this entry, but I also don’t own any boy clothes now; threw them away, and even started experimenting with a more minimalist life style; I want a less cluttered environment and mind.

Less tings, more space … both Physically and Mentally.

I want, maybe even need, more physical and mental space as I have tons of tings I want to do with the site, my art and my life, but I seem to have lots of clutter getting in the way. So I’m hoping less things, more space and than more ability to focus. It’s not just physical tings either, Facebook, Twitter etc … all gone for the moment.

Having no social media to check is so odd. You do feel disconnected, but at the same time massively free. Bit of a paradoxical feeling really. Considering I only live in a small room in a shared house, I have so much physical stuff too … especially under the bed, so the truth is, there hasn’t been much going on of late but de-cluttering.

My goal for today though, is to have a nice session of just listening to my therapist. I want to say thank you. That’s my main goal. Tell her how much I appreciate her. That’s all I need to do today. I’m currently sat on a bench outside the clinic eating grapes. So peaceful, but it’s nearly time to go in.

THE SESSION

That was another beautiful session. I really do love her … she is one of a kind. She’s also in the process of change, as she’s having a baby :) Woohoo. I had a feeling something was up the past few sessions, so that, while shocking, does sort of explain a few things. I’m so happy for her… that was the main thing we talked about really; I learnt a lot about her today :)

In terms of Genital Reassignment Surgery … I’m still trying to work out where I am with that, and seeing as since I last saw her I did the big one and started going to work as me finally, we didn’t really talk about it much lol In the end the main thing I talked about was some bad mental habits I’ve become aware and am trying to understand.

Being Yourself Around Family

It’s a really confusing situation, but when around a group of people from my past, such as family members, I seem to default back to my old self … that is, the super shy, anxiety filled, withdrawn person I used to be as a male. It happened a week ago while in town, when I became really self conscious after meeting up with my Sister and Niece.

It’s so strange, because I was feeling fine before I met them, and if I had met my Sister on her own, it would have been fine. My Niece on her own, it would have been fine, but all three of us together … I seemed to fall into my old ways. I have wondered if it’s kind of like they, or maybe even I, expect me to be like my old self, so I just slot into that role.

It’s like when you see an old friend from school, without realising it, you become that kid again. I think that’s what’s going on here, but while in town with them I was consumed by negative thoughts, which I knew were lies, yet I couldn’t seem to control them, Being Yourself around Family, when you’ve changed so much is hard.

It’s happened before too. This is painful and confusing, because it makes me want to shy away from being around them, which isn’t fair as I love them, they are both super supportive of me too, so I have zero reason to not be confident to be my true self around them. I think I’ve just got this deep association somewhere inside that activates and says .. right, now’s the part where you play this old-self role.

Horrible feeling because I feel so helpless, like I will plan to meet them and feel great. Think I’m on top of it finally, and than BAM, seemingly from nowhere it starts up and before I know it, the negative thoughts overwhelm me. This time the thought was they don’t want me there. I ended up saying to my Sister about it, explaining what I was feeling, before saying I had to leave and walking home.

I was proud of that action as I took control, and had the confidence to explain what I was feeling instead of just keeping it bottled up inside, but It took me a few days to get back in sync after that, and it can’t carry on like that. I need to work out how to break the association in the first place, or at least be ok with the feeling while it’s happening, knowing it’s a lie and will pass in time.

At work I am pretty much myself now, on my own in town I am content with who I am, at Art class I am myself and proud … my one remaining issue really is working out how to allow myself to be myself around my family who knew me long before I was Sophie.

So that was the main thing I personally spoke about with my therapist today. I guess part of the process of becoming more aware of my negative patterns, is that when they strike, they feel far worse because I’m so much more aware of them now. Whereas before I would have been on autopilot and not noticed, or maybe even it’s worse than that and what is really going on is, in the past that negative way I felt is actually how I used to always feel and so that was my old norm, whereas I now have a more positive feeling to compare it to if that makes sense. Confusing, but whatever it is, I realise it’s really hard to break negative mental habits.

On a more positive note, as we spoke, I can’t remember what we were talking about, but she randomly said … I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future you start doing psychic readings for people. I said, this is funny, but I’m seeing a psychic next month. How random is that. I have a feeling my therapist is psychic sometimes, the way she always knows what to say to me.

Being Accepted In Public

I’m writing this on the train home having just had a fun experience. It’s lil tings like this that make me so happy … As I got on, I asked this lady if the train had been to a place called Tiverton Parkway, as I wanted to sit in a seat that had a reservation for Tiverton parkway. The lady than started talking to a bloke and said, referring to me, the lady was asking if we’ve been to Tiverton Parkway.

She called me a lady … I know it may seem silly, but being called a lady brings so much happiness.

Visit Twenty Seven took place on the 24th of May 2018, and was the ‘I said no to genital reassignment surgery‘ visit