58 • THE LAURELS GENDER IDENTITY CLINIC VISIT 21

Future me here *waves* you alright? I hope so :) It’s now 2021, and I just wanted to add a lil image to this diary entry. It’s from outside the Gender Clinic, I used to sit on this stone window ledge and eat a sandwich before going into the session. It was super sunny this day, birds were flying about overhead, and people were walking past going about their day … I remember siting here feeling so content. 

*end of future me*

I chose a different train today; I wanted to take my time, so didn’t get on the first busy train, instead, opting to stay on the platform and wait. Right decision, this train is empty :)

I’m the wigless me again, wearing a nice pair of black hot pants and a jumper, its a little bit cold, very windy, but actually I would say perfect weather conditions for travelling. Today I have a lot to say to my therapist, want to ask her about:

• Being an introvert
• The fact I’ve starting thinking about Spironolactone again
• Wanting to stop Propecia
• Changing name to Sophie now, even before I present full time as me

It’s hard sometimes to know if a decision is fear based, or coming from the heart, that instinct feeling I talked about at the last visit. First time I’ve gone in with a list like this. I cant wait to see her. Its been an odd few weeks since the last session, very content with who I am now but, still have two main anxieties that keep popping up – my hair and veins.

They no longer consume me like they used to. I can feel the negative feeling and let it be, just feel it instead of letting it take my mind to a negative place. I’m sure this is cos I stopped taking Finasteride. It still slightly bothers me though, slightly lol aka, a lot. I need to find a way to deal with it.

THE SESSION

Was a nice session but super crazy. We spoke about PlayStation 4, lol We talked about it for most of the session actually. My list pretty much went out the window lol Turns out she plays games on PS4 and Steam … and she loves the same types of games as me wahoo!

Arty farty ones, as some people like to call them, but games like Papa n Yo, Journey, Flower, Limbo … etc, she said about playing this game called Not Alone. We watched the trailer together, looks cool, it’s about a little dude and a wolf :) She also said there is a sequel to Limbo called Inside, oh my, shows how far I slipped out of the gaming scene, I loved Limbo yet never knew!

In terms of my original questions, it was actually quite distracting having that list; it ruined the flow … I wont be doing that again, but it was talking about being an Introvert that we started talking about video games, so maybe it was worth having it for that :)

Can’t believe all this time she’s been mad into games and I never knew. I tend not to talk about video games much lately as I’m more focused on my art and stuff, but it was cool remembering all those little adventures with someone else.

She did say it’s important that I understand the reason behind wanting to do something. Like why do you want to stop Propecia? She said. Why … just keep asking why and if it’s a valid reason, stop it, but you will feel if it’s fear based, she said it’s important to be honest with yourself.

While we were talking about being Introvert, I had a mini ahha moment where I realised there is introversion and social anxiety. Introversion is seen as a bad thing in society, but it’s actually perfectly fine, and I would argue actually a good thing. Social Anxiety is not a good thing, as this stops you doing things you should be doing.

I’d made the mistake of confusing being an introvert with social anxiety, they are actually totally different things, yet appear very similar. I’m going to research it online and see what I can find. (I’m updating this entry from the future :) but I found a really good course which covers just what I was talking about – you can find it at iOvercameAnxiety.com)

So it was a really mad session actually, I would never in a million years have thought we would ever end up talking about video games :)

Visit twenty two took place on the 25th of August 2017, and was the ‘spiritual‘ visit