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Upcoming Meeting with a Therapist
Dec. 3rd, 2017 08:37 pmI'm meeting the therapist I contacted for the first time this coming Wednesday. In zir email, zie gave me directions to the room and let me know where the nearest gender-neutral restrooms are.
That set off a round of angsting in my brain. This a sense of some of my irrational thoughts.
--
I often use the men's room even if there are gender neutral bathrooms available. Using them feels like intruding in queer space. Like 'real' genderqueer people will be affronted by this guy using their area. The therapist hasn't met me yet. When zie meets me, maybe it'll be hard for zie to take me seriously as a non-binary person. I don't feel like I merit the consideration of being specifically informed about gender neutral facilities. Maybe I'm just wasting everyone's time. If I just present masculine all the time, is my agender-ness even important enough to worry over and talk about? There are NB people who are ostracized and harassed and attacked because of their appearance; I'm so not part of that world.
Other people have questioned the importance of gender to me given that I don't seem that unhappy being perceived as male. Does it really mean that much to me?
Do these fears put me in danger of shaping myself to fit what I unconsciously feel is expected of me, as I so often do? How I do keep hold of the real me in the face of beliefs about what other people expect and want from me when I don't even really know what the real me is?
--
I'm even scared of asking the therapist what pronouns zie prefers. I instinctively want to offer some kind of explanation of why I'm asking. I also feel like it'll somehow seem like an affectation; posing as something I'm not. I realize this is ridiculous.
There does not seem to be a rational way to address this kind of irrationality. I share it both to have a record of where I'm at these days (as has been my intent since I started journaling over a decade ago) and because maybe it will be meaningful to other people in some positive way.
That set off a round of angsting in my brain. This a sense of some of my irrational thoughts.
--
I often use the men's room even if there are gender neutral bathrooms available. Using them feels like intruding in queer space. Like 'real' genderqueer people will be affronted by this guy using their area. The therapist hasn't met me yet. When zie meets me, maybe it'll be hard for zie to take me seriously as a non-binary person. I don't feel like I merit the consideration of being specifically informed about gender neutral facilities. Maybe I'm just wasting everyone's time. If I just present masculine all the time, is my agender-ness even important enough to worry over and talk about? There are NB people who are ostracized and harassed and attacked because of their appearance; I'm so not part of that world.
Other people have questioned the importance of gender to me given that I don't seem that unhappy being perceived as male. Does it really mean that much to me?
Do these fears put me in danger of shaping myself to fit what I unconsciously feel is expected of me, as I so often do? How I do keep hold of the real me in the face of beliefs about what other people expect and want from me when I don't even really know what the real me is?
--
I'm even scared of asking the therapist what pronouns zie prefers. I instinctively want to offer some kind of explanation of why I'm asking. I also feel like it'll somehow seem like an affectation; posing as something I'm not. I realize this is ridiculous.
There does not seem to be a rational way to address this kind of irrationality. I share it both to have a record of where I'm at these days (as has been my intent since I started journaling over a decade ago) and because maybe it will be meaningful to other people in some positive way.
