How Do Therapy

... Okay, that just triggered the voice in my brain that goes "but I wasn't being PRESSURED really, I'm making a big deal out of it when it isn't, I'm just being oversensitive". And that actually helped me a ton, because I know that voice is pretty much universally bullshit.

 

GUESS WHAT

I MESSAGED THERAPY GUY SAYING "HEY DUDE I'M GONNA GET THERAPY WITH SOMEONE ELSE, GIVE ME UR ACCOUNT INFO SO I CAN PAY YOU FOR THE 5 SESSIONS WE HAD

AND HE CALLED ME UP

AND MISGENDERED ME

AND TRIED TO INSIST WE HAVE ANOTHER SESSION

AAAAAH I LOVE THE FEELING OF VINDICATION IN THE MORNING

 

I'm so pissed off I feel energized.

 

"I understand what you're saying, and I think it's important that you feel free to do whatever you want but I still would like one last session so we can terminate the process in person"

me, smiling: "Yeah I would prefer not to."

 

This was AFTER I pointed out to him that he had just misgendered me on the goddamn phone, to which his reply was an embarassed "I... may have comitted that Freudian slip, yes"

A Freudian slip is when you accidentally call your boss "mom", not when you misgender a guy who's been telling you his dark secrets with the utmost trust for 2 weeks and who you're trying to convince to have more therapy with you.

 

Here's an update: I'm now irrationally nervous that the New Therapist is going to judge me negatively for firing this guy, especially since my last therapeutic relationship also ended with me walking away from a douchebag (after holding on for almost a year, much longer than I should have). Help?

 

New therapist in less than 12 hours.

And talk about fucking processing needs: I literally just arrived at a way to talk about firing my other therapist which doesn't make me feel guilty and doesn't put me on the defensive, instead involving me being able to talk about how he 1) seemed uncomfortable with trans and gender stuff (including my experience with rape btw) and I thought it might be projection on my part but it was confirmed not to be because he 2) misgendered me on the phone and neither realized it nor, when called out, apologized, 3) dealt poorly with triggering me and 4) repeatedly attempted to override my clearly stared desire to limit or terminate our contact.

Guess how long it took me to arrive at this point? Almost exactly one week :}

 

Any therapist who uncritically uses the term "Freudian slip" is not someone you want helping you process gender stuff, anyway

 

Guess who had a really good therapy session!! Therapist was super nice and helpful, we talked for over 2 hours and she never pressured me to wrap it up, and negotiating time of appointments and payment was VERY straightforward and smooth, which I like a lot. She's not very knowledgeable on trans issues, but she has a trans girl patient and told me she's trying to learn a lot more about the subject - she even attended a conference on trans people's rights to identity as pertaining to their name changes in February which I was in, too! And she said several times that if I ever find her lacking she can forward me to a colleague of hers who is partnered with a local LGBT nonprofit. There were good and bad things, and I'll talk about both here, though so far I think the good outweight the bad:

As I mentioned, this therapist is not particularly knowledgeable on trans issues. She misgendered me a couple of times, but always immediately corrected herself and apologized when I called her out, and, in fact, encouraged me to call her out as many times as it takes for her to get it right. Also, while she understood intellectually that gender is one thing and sexuality is another, sometimes she mixed them up a little in her speech, which she acknowledged. Partly this was because she had never heard that the opposite of "trans" is "cis". I explained that these particles derive from latin, meaning "on the other side" and "on this side", and that the "trans" in transgender is the same one we find in "transcription", "transportation", "transgression" etc. - the idea of movement, of crossing over into someplace else. She was very moved by that actually, she said that's beautiful imagery and she was happy I told her.

She also spewed out some generic "I'm sure your mom loves u no matter what because that's what moms do :)" bullshit before I got to tell her about the immense clusterfuck that is my mother. I said "my mother is a narcissistic abuser and she loves, at best, her idea of who I should be, with no regards as to whether or not I am that person". When I mentioned how, even though I'm fine interacting with mom now, I'd never want a potential partner or - heaven forbid - child of mine to interact with her, her knee-jerk reaction was "oh but she's your mom, you have to learn to forgive her, you'll always have her blood in your veins and you have to have some contact or you'll be eaten up by guilt." In response to which I just. Went. OFF.

I told her that having her blood in my veins has not created in me a sense of obligation, that my distrust of my mother is not about forgiveness but rather acknowledging her nature, and that forgiveness does not mean self-deceit about how potentially toxic and damaging a person is ("I wouldn't throw a loved one in front of a bus, I wouldn't toss them off a window, and I wouldn't leave them alone with my mother"). I also told her that my mother is a grown woman who made the choice to abuse and harm me as an adult, and that me not wanting contact with her is a direct consequence of HER decisions, which she made as an adult and must learn to live with. I said "And if I do feel any guilt - and I might, because we live in a christian society that thrives on guilt - it'll be unfair, misplaced guilt which I should not carry and which does not belong to me. I do not belong to my mother and she does not have any rights to my time, my life, my affection, my loved ones, my house, or anything about me." I told her about the gaslighting, the physical and psychological abuse, the denial of any wrongdoing on her part, the manipulation. The years and years that woman spent torturing me with impunity and convincing me as best she could that I was an inherently worthless person unable to love, be loved or possess any right to self-determination.

The therapist was really good about dealing with that response. She quickly realized she'd talked nonsense, listened to me intently, validated me, and actually thanked me, towards the end of the session, for challenging what she realized were her preconceived notions. I think that as far as disagreements go, this went really well. She fucked up pretty colossally at first, but very quickly seemed to get on my page.

She also complimented me for responding to her in a critical, analytical and clear-headed way ("like a philosopher, seeking out the roots of ideas and phenomena to gain full understanding of them instead of focusing on their surface"). As therapists often do when they meet me, she had lots of positive words to say about The Workings of My Mind - my sense of humor, my sensibility, my intellect, my general ability to think critically, and also my understanding of the healing power of literature, poetry, art and reason. She also arrived surprisingly quickly at my lowkey social anxiety, and since she has some background in CBT, which I never tried but always wanted to, I hope she can have some helpful insight and exercises.

Above all, however, she seemed very engaged, supportive and excited to work with me if I choose to work with her, and I felt at home with her. I feel like in spite of our differences in background we "clicked" very quickly. She said that she thinks the world is changing for the best and that I'm a part of that change and that it takes a lot of courage to challenge prejudice and common sense and live authentically, and that she could see that I'd gone through a lot in life and yet my joy, my willingness to be vulnerable and honest and my resilience were admirable. We set up a second appointment a week from now, and I'm really looking forward to it!

 

Therapist update: we touched on the clusterfuck that is my mother + transness + cancer, and I yelled at her a little bit because she unwittingly tripped right up on one of mom's manipulation techniques, because she was all "think of how hard it was for your mom to have a sick baby". And I got very upset at that, like "or how about we think of what it's like to be a sick baby whose life is entirely in the hands of dysfunctional abusers who are using you and your illness as excuses for all their shitty behaviors while denying you any authority over your person, forever!". She talks a lot, which I like to a certain extent because it feels less like I'm talking to a silently judging void, but this time she kept cutting into what I was saying and I just very angrily told her to please stay quiet while I said these things. It actually went very well. Generally I'm liking her a lot.

 

Update: the thick plottens.