Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Counseling Sessions

46


After the psychiatric nurse recommended I seek out the community mental health clinic for on going care, after a couple weeks of consideration, I did. The psychiatric nurse was the first person, beyond my mother nearly a decade earlier, that I had ever started to bring-up my 'situation' to. And yet while she didn't have any interest in it, I found that once I had opened that door, I wanted to continue talking about it... With someone.
And so I sought out the community mental health clinic and found their main branch location at the far end of town. When I got there and talked with them and found out their phone number for future visits, they noted that they had a branch location nearer to where I lived and set-up my first appointment there. It was based on a sliding scale and since my personal income was only a few hundred dollars of temporary state aid each month, I was able to get in and have appointments for a two dollar co-pay. So far, so good, I reflected.
'Stella Hernandez' was assigned as my counselor and we first had to get the elephant out of the room; within the first two weeks we discussed and she agreed that I didn't have any psychological eating disorder. Once that topic was out of the way, I thought we could now get to the subject of my strange puberty and I could gain some understanding and insight.
She explained to me how she had benefited a great deal from counseling herself and how she had wished she could continue with it even though her counselor finally decided one day that she no longer needed to come. But then it occurred to her to seek a job as a counselor herself, and then in this way she would be able to continue in counseling, albeit with the shoe on the other foot. Stella told me of the time she and her friends got to go on a trip to Spain, in their teenaged years, and visit the coast there. She told me of the job she had with a retired military boss who would only call her by her last name and how that hurt her feelings until she realized through counseling that he was just calling her by the last name as he called everyone else and it didn't mean anything personal.
I was initially very impressed with Stella and her technique of being the first to open up with me so, I assumed, I'd grow comfortable in the relationship and more easily open up to her. She told me many highlights of her childhood and the awkward moments during her teenaged years and of troubles finding her first job as an adult. By the end of the first five weeks, I found myself wanting to force my way, edgewise, into the continuous monologue about herself: So I could talk about 'me'.
It was then I began to realize what she had meant by her desire to continue with counseling, the only problem was I was now the one making the co-payment on her behalf.
By the sixth week I made sure to have the first word of the appointment before she could start talking at length about another aspect of her life. I said I wanted to talk about my gender issue and what it meant. She flat out told me how lucky I was to be legally male and not to worry about it because it made me 'so privileged in society'. In fact, she told me, I had never known discrimination in my life as a result of being deemed male and why would I want to open up that can of worms? I sat there incredulous for a time, apparently my gaping expression was enough to leave her speechless for a moment.
''So you're saying that me, as a stutterer with a mixed raced background, had never known discrimination in my life? That seems plausible to you?'' I responded.
She was flustered for a moment then clarified that being a woman was a whole new level of discrimination in society that would make anything else I had experienced pale in comparison. Be that as it may, I didn't know why that meant we shouldn't talk about my 'situation' and what might have caused it, what it meant, and what I could or should do about it. But the flood gates were open and she gave me examples of people thinking less of her because she was a woman, ultimately the examples didn't seem all that different from my own experiences, but our time was soon up.
When I arrived for my next appointment, she handed me a flyer for what I'll call the 'Gender Support Group' of Colorado. Glancing through the flyer it was apparently a support group for transsexuals and transvestites. By handing me the flyer, Stella had successfully kept me quiet enough that she could begin talking about her first husband. When I tried to ask her about the flyer and what it meant, she didn't want to lose track of the topic we were already discussing: Her husband.
By the eighth appointment, I arrived to find out it was check-point day and Stella quickly told me that I was to have an interview with her boss. I was ushered into a dark backroom office where a guy introduced himself, explained that his job was to get his own feeling about my case and then next week I'd be back seeing Stella again. He started off by noting how Stella had told him that I was so comfortable having her as my counselor as she reminded me of my mother. I burst out laughing and I said if she had reminded me of my mother I wouldn't have been caught dead seeing her. Her boss was taken aback, did I have issues with my mother? A bit, I returned. He was surprised Stella didn't know about that, but we have been talking about my gender issues, right? Not really, I answered, she's told me quite a bit about her own life. But that's just to get things going in the first week and you've been discussing your gender issues ever since...? No it's been nearly every week and I've found myself frustrated trying to get in a word about my issues during the appointments. Really? He commented as he made some notes. Yeah, I affirmed. So she told me that you wanted some medication. She did? I replied. You had talked with her about starting medication... he lead. No, I answered, what would it be for? You mean you haven't talked about it? The subject's never come up.
''Hum,'' he said as he made more notes and had a growing concern spreading across his face. That was the end of the appointment.
There were a few minutes left and Stella intercepted me in the waiting area as I was heading for the door, ''So that went well, then?''
I asked her what the whole medication thing was about and she looked nervous, ''You mean we hadn't talked about that?''
No, I answered and then I noted with a confused smile, ''And he said you thought you reminded me of my mother?''
''Don't I?'' she returned. Given that she physically bore no resemblance to my mother, nor in personality either, I said she didn't. ''You don't get along with your mother?'' she suddenly asked. I told her I didn't and she became wide-eyed as she thanked me and I was on my way.
When I arrived for the ninth appointment, I was first called into the financial aid office where they told me they had recently changed their standards, they would now need a full financial disclosure from my mother in order to figure what my adjusted co-payment would be since ''she was financially supporting me.'' I told them that, actually, I was more of a squatter in her home and she didn't give me a penny to help pay for anything, not even food. The financial aid people couldn't believe that and said the standard was now everyone living under 'one roof' must have their finances reviewed in order to determine what the appropriate co-payment would be.
When I affirmed that I wouldn't be able to get that sort of information from her, they just couldn't believe it. I then asked about the 'one roof' policy, did that mean that people living in an apartment building with one roof would have to provide all of their neighbors' financial statements in order to determine the co-payment of one tenant? ''Yes,'' was the answer I was given and I couldn't believe that.
Since I couldn't provide the level of financial paperwork they now required, my time with them had apparently come to an end. Just like that.
I was actually thankful for it.




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