I'm overwhelmed

[Teresa]

Jamie,
I had two sessions of counselling they were both referrals from my GP, the first was to go back over the problems I had when i nearly ended my life, She wasn't a gender counsellor but was very good at getting me to open up face facts and believe in who I am. On of the important things she tried to change was don't fill your head with assumptions, your brain just tail chases because it assumes what people think. My big hurdle was whether to tell my son or not, because the fear was that if he knew would he cut me off from my grandsons. I went ahead and did it , it was like a breath of fresh air , he was OK about it and even told his wife which was a big surprise. It took a huge weight off my wife's shoulders and I felt that the total me was being accepted. My counsellor was so pleased that I'd finally broken the destructive cycle in my mind .

My second counsellor was a gender therapist, this time I needed to get to the bottom of my feelings and where I was on the gender spectrum. She worked for Relate, their main objective is to get couples back on track if possible, as usual I hit the wall with my wife refusing to attend. This time I'd thought it through and wrote everything down in an unbiased way , also I devised a gender sheet working from male to female, plotting my situation on it . I found this very useful as it became clearer that I wasn't TS but TG/gender fluid, finally I realised that this sheet wouldn't make sense unless I wrote down how my CDing started . I showed this to my counsellor, she took it away to discuss it with the rest of the group and came back with praise for the gender sheet , they hadn't seen it laid out in that way and found it very useful. She had no problems with the contents so I knew I had something valid to show my wife to compensate for her refusing to attend joint counselling.
She did eventually read the summary sheet but it was enough for her to realise how much my CDing meant to me and what my needs were, we talked calmly and I asked her could she live with my needs, if not to be fair to both of us it might be better to consider separation , initially she jumped up and grabbed a coat and said I'm off !
I took her calmly by the arms , sat her down and told this is going to do no one any good , if it's got to happen it's going to take time and some sorting out. We gradually began to accept it and things actually became easier, the penny began to drop with her as to what she could be losing , I began to feel deep hurt thinking about losing contact with my grandchildren, it also meant I would be leaving the load on her to do all the explaining to family and friends, besides I have an 86 year old mother to think about and she would have been very upset if we split up.
The outcome is I said I would stay, my wife is much happier I made it clear that I wanted time to be Teresa if I wished but no one was excluded from that if they wished. I will admit it's a compromise but that's life, nothing is perfect !

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