You need a plan.

As I broke my self denial in August 2002 I started to make a plan for my transitioning, with the time table, action sectors and collecting supporters. My first support group was TW, but I understood right away I need desperately local supporters. My first visit to the ts support center in Helsinki was in January 2003 and I was scared. There I met other girls, some ahead of me, some even behind. My next step was to get genetic female friends and I succeeded even in that. In September 2003 I found myself sitting with 6 genetic women in a cafe. All of them accepted me as one of them. A few of them have become my very best friends, and I to them, too.
This all did not just happen. I had a plan, but I was very very lucky, too.

Laura

Getting supporters is essential for the reason that we ts:s and tv:s are often very lonely...or at least much alone. For a ts it is very hard to get friends in the fake role and you don´t even want that. In the transition that thing slowly changes and at the same time you NEED people who accept you as you are. You are very vulnerable just in the middle of transitioning. But for the whole you must sit down and think how you do it. You need a plan.

Laura

Sandra

Theoretically you may be right. But it is impossible to get new "normal" friends in the middle of transitioning and not come out to them. So, many of my "normal" friends know my background and I feel that they take me fully as a woman. One of them even sais she cannot imagine how I was as a man. Of course you must be able to trust them.
Now I have learned to know some of the friends of my new friends. And they don´t know any more my background.
You are a well passing girl already in the early transitioning. But you are a special case. Most of us are long something between a male and female. And it would be crazy to reject possible friends just in the phase you most desperately need them.

Laura

Popped into my mind...Riitta, my best friend, said she could not live through the transition phase. She said she would close herself into a closet for two years...hehe.

Laura

Sandra,

I don't want psyhc support but I think it is very nescessary. How else do you know how you are doing. Whether or not you are making sound healthy judgements. Something this big and dissrupting in ones life must be taken with a full understanding. Sure its good to have friends, but they don't have any formal training. So how the hell are they supposed to know if you are not making healthy decisions?

I also think while you don't have to tell everyone everything it is important to tell your friends your past. I am not saying you have to do this everytime you meet someone. I think your good friends should be told. Imagine how you would feel if someone close to you had been hiding a big secret from you. It need not be any different from saying when i was kid I used to live somewhere else, or I as kid i used to do ballet. It was part of your history but you have moved on. Otherwise your history will always be a secret and you will have a worry about it coming out oneday. Thats not a healthy way to live. My good friends know and are col with it, just like Laura's. Laura has even said that her friends have accepted her as a woman and can't imagine her any other way and they know.

Well Monday 26th of this month i start the long road with my doctor, so i suppose this is where it really kicks of for me. My GF looked at a photo of me the other day and said she can't imagine me as **** but only as JJ now.
So i have the support from her and a whole host of new friends i have met as JJ so we will see what goes......love JJ xx

Yes Fiona

Sorry I totally passed the topic of professional support. It is very important. For your own sake. I have had two parallel professional series of sessions through my whole procedure. One is the official governmental screening, the other one is offered by my own municipality. Just to back me up in my big life change.
Now slowly I have the feeling not to need these any more, the municipal sessions have been only every one and half months.
The governmental screening ends when they have given me the papers what I need to change my juridical sex. That will be soon.
Next year I´ll be "on my own", without professional support, unless I wish to continue the municipal sessions.

Laura

To tell or not to tell?

To a real good friend, YES. Or to your future husband, definitely YES. To a not so close friend, NO. To work collegues, NO.
It is like any other major event in your life. Notice, this is not a minor thing. It is better to train to speak about your past and childhood in a neutral way. Like: I went to the high school there and there, I was married, my ex was a school teacher. I have two kids. You cannot read if the person is male or female. Of course nothing about going to the military...instead maybe one year learning germanic languages in the University....

Laura

Sandra,

I hear what yyou are saying, but still think professional help is needed. I to have a very rational mind and work everything out for myself, but it is good to see a psych and have him challenge me only to agree. To me this means I have validation from someone who has spent the better part of a decade learning how to understand human behavour and minds.

On the friend bit, I agree that you don't do it straight away. After time I would learn about someone who was divorced, or had a child die. Its part of a friendship sharing ourselves. I think that telling someone about transition would take longer to do than most things, but it should be done. Its probably more akin to telling someone about being in gaol once. You would feel suspicious forever if you found out and they didn't tell you themself. You cannot compleaty evr hide your past so it is best to be open to at least good friends.

Sandra

The best thing about the professional screening/support sessions was in my case that it was my lean against my ex, who tried to tell everybody I had turned crazy and should be put behind locks into a polstered room. Meeting the professionals I could convince them I was not crazy and my ex didn´t have any weapons to change that.
But still last September, having been already 6 months in the ts-screening, I suddenly got a phone call from a medical doctor, who said my wife is very concerned about my state of mind and I shoyld come immediately to see him. I told him I´m already in good hands and if he cannot make me come, for example by plice force, I won´t come. He said, it is not necessary. I ended the discussion wishing that we meet maybe at another disease .

You see what I mean.

Laura

Yes, why not.

I think our system offers professional help in all difficult life situations. And free. I pay not an eurocent to the government or to the municipality.
But our society seems to concentrate their attention especially on us and in child adoptions. You may marry anybody and get as many children you can...without governmental control.

Laura

Sandra,

I think that psych support is so definatly needed. There is nothing so dramatic, and all encompasing as transition. Marriage is nothing compared to this. Everything single thing in your life is going to change. From how people talk to you and about you, to your body, to the way in which you think.
about yourself and how you view the world.

I have always been female. I have always thought myself to be so. This is not a normal thought. How can you as a perfectly normal male think you are female and not see this as a little crazy. At least from somebodies elses point of view. I to am a transexual. So I know that I have always felt female, having spoken to a psych helps me see that I am a little more male than I thought. I see now some things about me that I didn't before and when he had said it, it made sence.

My psych agrees that for me the best way to go is through transition. He spoke to my Mum and she helped him understand me and he also helped her understand me. Understanding yourself should be the key. I ahted the thought of having to go and see a psych. I thought it wasn't needed, and time wasting. I was wrong no matter how well I think I know me and the way I am, an outsiders views can help.

I understand that it can be costly. Lucky for me Medicare picks up the tab [thanks Aussie government]but it is a good thing to do. I don't think anything more than six monthly visits are needed now. So its not like I am saying speek to one each week. Just now and again.

I had my own reasons to be happy with the professional help. And it is compulsatory, anyway, if you wish to proceed to legal hormones.
I kind of found the psychological tests funny. There was a guy testing me 8 hours long. And they found me more feminine than I thought myself. "The tested person has a very high verbal intelligence and has a very strong female self-esteem".

Laura

Okay Sandra, but you still have the private alternative. We don´t. Private shrinks are not allowed to treat GID, the patients must be sent to Tampere or Helsinki University Hospitals special units. So, many of us must travel hundreds of kilometres, some even 600-800km, every two weeks or so. But I think their home communities pay for the trips. Tampere is now known for a smoother process, people get quicker through the "ts-pipe". Also name changes are easier there.
The law is the same, but people are different, and that is something we cannot change.

Laura

Sandra,

you sound very distrustful and angry to me. I hope you find something that works for you. I personally think it would be helpful for you to talk to someone who can help you. Maybe you find life easier if you were to trust someone other than yourself.

Sandra,

sorry i didn't mean angry or distrustful towards me, I meant toward life in general. I feel like you wish to have no risk and in doing so have no life. Sandra, if you protect yourself from everything all the time you will never experience life to its fullest. Life is a risk and at the moment I think your biggest risk is not seeing that life and people can be really wonderful.

Sandra, I think you are being selfish. You are a really beautiful person and you are hiding it away from everyone. If you shared yourself with the world you will probably find that you will enjoy life more and the world will be a better place for trannies as a whole. I have been on other sites and have spoken to some Italians and they seem to be really interested in trannies. There was girls and guys who said they really liked trannies. So what I am saying is to let the world see who you really are as the world wants to see you.

About trusting people...

I guess I am crazy to trust so easily everybody. But that is my character and so far I didn´t have bad backfire from trusting people.
About trannies and people liking trannies. Honestly, I don´t like people who like trannies. And I see the whole state of being one myself a passing phase. It will be soon over.
Maybe I told you I had one admirer of trannies as a sex partner last fall. But I felt deeply hurt, because the part of me he was mostly interested in is the same part I hate.

Laura

Well i'm seeing two shrinks not gid but for PTSD(post traumatic stress disorder)for what i saw and suffered in the army.Now one i don't like he is a money grabbing,back stabbing knob head, the other one is very understanding, helpful and has my complete trust. So i would hope that when i see the shrink for GID i am able to trust him and accept his advice, without judging before i even meet him/her.
I think we all need a little proffessional help sometime in our transitioning.......love JJ xx

My official ts shrink is the only possibility. There is no alternative. He is seemingly uninterested and probably secretly somehow against the whole phenomenon. Especially our transmen claim that he is unfair towards them. I have actually met him only a couple of times. Last time I met him was in December as he wished me "a good female life", then still with a male name. .

Laura

Being made to see a therapist is not calculated to establish a trusting, theraputic relationship between patient and therapist. The requirements to see one are not for that purpose. They are the "gatekeeper" system to protect the system from making a mistake with you and having it thrown in their face and to protect the small minority that should never have transitioned through SRS. It's a one-way trip, girls, you deal with the system to protect Those people from a mistake they can't correct.

There are some poor/bad therapists and mental health providers out there. I have worked with/for some of them. In some cases I stayed to be the one person "my kids" could count on while they were hospitalized. However, most people in the business are caring and, at least, competent if allowed to do their job by the system. Nurse Ratchet is an exception, not the rule.

A good therapist will not try to tell you who you are. They will teach you skills, let you explore yourself, be a sounding board for your thoughts and feelings, and support you in finding your own answers to your questions/problems. They will know that TS patients have a lower than average level of pathology as compared to the entire population...it is one of the diagnostic criteria for confirming true transexualism. If you don't like your therapist, talk to him/her about it. If you can't resolve the issues, change therapists.

I don't know ANYONE who can't benefit in their life from time with a good therapist. It's called Self-Actualization (Maslow). After many months of working out to tell my ex that I could not marry her, I went to see our old therapist first to make sure I was going to make this as easy on her as I possibly could and that I wasn't missing something in my own head. It helped me do it right and avoid guilt afterwards. I'm going back to see him to talk about Wendy and try to put the puzzle back together and locate missing pieces of it. He won't tell me about myself; in fact it is like pulling teeth to get him to ever do that. What he will do is guide me and coach me. And this is a man that, until now, even HE didn't know about that side of me...because I didn't trust even him with it...my failing, not his, it probably seriously interfered with him helping me.

I guess what I am trying to say is the your therapist does not have to be an adversary. They can be a helpful, caring, "friend" who will risk your displeasure to give you the best they can give...you don't find many friends like that.

I only have a few years myself to being a "gateway guardian" (I prefer "Gender Guide") BEFORE A GIRL YOU WILL BE YOU MUST ANSWER ME THESE QUESTIONS THREE!!! What is your femme name? What is your favorite perfume? What is the capital of Baluchistan?
Seriously, those of you who want to share what needs are not being met with your transition therapist I promise to use that information to become that Guide. You can always be anonymous if you prefer. I have 30 yrs of keeping confidences confidential. You would be amazed at what I know about who...but I will never share it with anyone. I learn a lot here. We are all different with different needs and perceptions. Even those of you who are mistaken about certain facts teach me not to assume anything. Most of you teach me about the richness of yourselves and teach me a lot about myself. I was wrong about a lot of what I knew about myself until you taught me differently. That, of course, is most important to me. I would, however, like to "repay" a debt that can never be repaid by your knowing that I will use my personal growth and our shared experiences to help other girls, later, and that one day I will, hopefully, use it all to teach other therapists to work better with us all. You will all be part of what those girls get through me, a major part, and you should take the credit you are due.

Wendy is such a windbag. It's true, women talk to much, lol.