Picking up where I left off, J, D, and myself were heading into St. Louis to see my therapist for the first time. I've mentioned her name elsewhere, but for those that haven't read earlier entries her name is Kelly S. Storck and I can't recommend her strongly enough. But we can talk about that later, let's get back to the "story" so to speak. I'm going to insert a picture here of how I looked at that first visit. Looking back I guess it wasn't all that bad for being my only my third time out as "Madison", but I definitely think things have improved in the time since then.
Probably a little too "pink happy", and overall probably better suited for someone a good 10 years younger than I am, but again all things considered I thought it was pretty good at the time.
So we got there and after some words of encouragement from J and D, I headed in. I waited in the waiting area for a couple of minutes, nervously at that, until Kelly came out and introduced herself. She was what I expected since I had seen a few photos of her so no surprise there. She gave me some forms to fill out and let me be. She returned a few minutes later and collected the forms and me and took me back to her office. She's located in a small home in Webster Groves that has been turned into several offices including hers, it's a nice and cozy environment - I was much more at ease there than I would've been in some medical type office - not that my opinion may matter, but I think she made a good choice as to where she's at.
I was nervous so I joked if I was supposed to lie down on the couch, obviously she's probably heard that a million times before, but she took it in stride and told me to do whatever made me most comfortable so I elected to simply sit in the middle of the couch. :) We had a brief introduction to each other; truthfully I had done my research on her and knew most of what she shared. I then gave her a short overview - almost an outline or even almost a resume of my life. We then touched on what my goal(s) were and why I was there. At one point she was incredibly blunt with me and flat out asked if I was only there to obtain a letter for HRT. I was a bit shocked that she was so blunt about it, but I was honest and the answer was no. Yes I did want that at some point, but I was there to get an unbiased opinion if I was a good candidate to transition. By that I mean prepared mentally and emotionally and I was afraid I wouldn't get that at home as J is so supportive she'd back me no matter what I did.
Once we got past that we did start going into my life in more detail. It took the balance of this session and the second session to get through it. Now since this isn't meant to be an exclusive diary of that first session, but rather in general I'll jump to that second session now. Towards the end of that session she told me in her opinion I was prepared to transition and she'd start working on my letter at the next session and it would likely take 2-3 sessions to get through it and asked if I was okay with that. I was happy with that as I expected 2-3 months to get a letter - and that would've been with weekly sessions and I was going every other week.
So by now you're probably wondering what the purpose of this two part post was/is. Well I'm starting too as well - no seriously I'm not. There were a couple of things I wanted to convey. First is that I know back when I was doing my research I wondered about what therapy would be like and I thought giving a glimpse into my first session might be helpful. For that matter if anybody does read this and has more specific questions on what it was like feel free to leave comment(s) or contact me via Google+/Facebook/etc and I'll be more than happy to discuss it with you. The other reason I wanted to get into this is that a friend of mine who is working as a therapist posted something to Facebook yesterday that I thought was very relevant and had some things in it that I wish I had thought/known back when I was considering therapy. The link is below:
10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Therapy
It's fairly short, but again I think it's good reading. Not necessarily ground breaking stuff there, but if nothing else a few good reminders and maybe more.
As always thanks for reading.
- M
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