Every time I finish an appointment with my long time therapist, my partner Liz always digs deep to discover if I have told her (or anyone) of my deepest secrets. Yesterday, I finally told her (Liz) no I don’t go that deep with my therapist. I have a tendency to dance around any subject which pertains to me. We have been having sessions now for nearly a decade now so her familiarity with me allows me to dance away and rarely does she (therapist) catch me.
I’m sure the reason I do it is goes back to the majority of my life when I struggled to hide my gender dysphoria totally along with the inability to even understand what was going on with being bi-polar. Needless to say the entire process was very difficult and I became very good at hiding my true self from others.
Even though Liz still has to take a pry bar to me to get me to show emotions, I am trying in my own backward way to be more outgoing.
As far as my therapist goes though, maybe I should pull down the barriers and let her have it. Then again maybe not. My Dad was very emotionally withdrawn. It’s just so difficult to overcome.
Cyrsti's Transgender Condo 
I know you are not asking for advice, but if you can’t open up to your therapist perhaps you should find a different one or just stop going…that is the one place it should be safe to open up. If you aren’t getting that, at least you should talk about that.
Thanks! My partner and I have discussed the same opportunity.
During my next appointment I am going to try a new approach.
Therapy is very difficult. I spent years in therapy, grappling with some of the issues you may or may not be grappling with, origins of gender, why me, self-destructive behaviour, my sexuality…all really hard (for me) to deal with. And I was too embarrassed to open up to my therapist for two years, and I though, heck, I’m paying for this, why can’t you just read my mind and fix me? In the end I got so exasperated it all came out in one session, and after that, I finally had real therapy. Would have saved me a lot of time and angst!
It is so much easier to open up anonymously, when the people reading your blog aren’t looking at you as you find the words and try to force them out, when you can’t see their expressions.
Introverts. We are the root of our problem. We want to be helped, loved even. But, we don’t want to be bothered with people, and there are times when we don’t even care if we are really understood and known.
Paying a therapist is like paying a plumber or painter, however. You are plunking down something for a particular service – to be listened to, heard, and counselled (given psychological treatment). When you don’t disclose fully, it’s like giving you doctor only part of the symptoms that forced you to make the medical appointment in the first place. If you feel you need to talk to a therapist for a particular reason, or reasons, the therapist should know exactly what those reasons are and what you really want to talk about. They need all the information they can get – and so do you.
As always, though, thank you for the insight and honesty.
Perhaps you have seen, I have replied on the blog.
Thanks Mark for the wonderful comment!