I’ve just realized that I’m going back to therapy in 2 days…I didn’t even realize my appointment was coming up so quickly. The reason I’m going back is mainly dysphoria, beside it’s been so bad recently that I’ve been having a lot of thoughts of suicide and self-harm. It’s been really hard for me not to relapse recently, I did relapse last year but I haven’t cut all of this year which is good. But my depression has been worse than ever, I hardly have the motivation to get up in the morning. And I’ve been feeling super unstable, like any one think can set off an anxiety attack. It happened just yesterday because I couldn’t find my name tag for work. My mental health overall has really worsened. I think it’s all because of my dysphoria, I’ve been a lot more self-conscious over the smallest things and a lot more…sensitive to misgendering, I guess? It’s like I just can’t take being misgendered anymore, I used to just brush it off and not get too upset but it drives me crazy now. So that’s why I’m going back to therapy. But I’m really worried because I’ve never had much luck talking with mental health professionals…either they’ve been outright transphobic or they’ve just ignored what I said and don’t want to talk about it with me. I always get misgendered too and I don’t know if I could handle someone speaking to me all condescendingly about my own identity again. But I have to talk about it. I’m just freaked out, I’m really nervous. Maybe I just shouldn’t even talk about it. I just feel stupid because I feel like I don’t pass and I don’t want them to think I’m delusional or not take me seriously. What should I do? I’m super nervous. Maybe I should just not go, haha. I just don’t know if I can really…open up this time. Do I have to tell them on the first appointment or should I tell them this the first time?
Maybe you could try a real gender therapist instead of a regular therapist? They should not be transphobic and would probably not misgender you. They would also be well versed in the topic of gender dysphoria. This is my experience at least.
There aren’t any gender therapists where I live, I’ve looked and unfortunately the closest one is a couple of cities away... I thought the place I’m going to would be the best right now because they have like a GSA type of group there but I don’t know.
That sucks that the gender therapist is so far :/ If the therapist you're going to is gay friendly, that should be better than a normal therapist, although in my experience those can have no clue about being transgender either. And can even be transphobic. The relationship between your dysphoria and bad mood can be two ways: one way is that you are feeling this way because of dysphoria and the other is that you could be exaggerating dysphoria because of depression. I haven't had that experience with gender dysphoria, but depression makes you view things through a negative lens and exaggerate probelms. If you decide to take antidepressants now, your outlook should become more optimistic and dysphoria should become less painful if depression makes you exaggerare it. Depression can make you self conscious. It does that. Have you booked a visot to a psychoatrist as well? Maybe you should because your depression is so ... vast and deep. Now another problem I see: What happened?
