💾 Archived View for tilde.pink › ~maria › log › 2021-07-22_bias.gmi captured on 2022-06-11 at 20:52:32. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

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bias

For the longest time I have postponed the inevitable. Finding a new therapist. One that can not only deal with my life challenges, but also include my personality and identity challenges. My dysphoria has increased lately. It always does in summer. It goes away and comes back a while later. Like most psychological issues, it has waves.

Thanks to COVID-19 the amount of free therapists is small. Non-existant if you want to have one with gender identity as a specialty. I contacted countless and none had a spot, so I turned to some phone service to redirect me. Which turned out to be working. They had a few.

And so comes the BIAS. It creeps in and tells me:

They only have a spot because they are bad therapists
There must be something wrong with the system
[and in my case] Foreigners have no idea about culture and it's worse when they don't speak the language too well

Despite all mental blocks I went to a chinese (the name suggests chinese origin, could be wrong, but since I live in Europe, you get the gist) woman who had massive issues speaking the local language. And when you visit a therapist for the first time, to be able to have insurance pay for the therapy, you need to outline why you need therapy and what your therapy goal is.

It's good to make those reasons clear and keep them in your mind. At the same time you'll be repeating them over and over again should the therapist be incompatible. A valid fear and quite a nuisance.

And so I delivered my reasons and fears and worries and goals. Therapy left me puzzled. I have two more sessions now to see if we're compatible, but the tiny voice in my head is worried about the bias. What if the therapist barely gets me due to the language and cultural barriers. What if the therapist cannot find good words for me. What if the therapist is really bad and therefore had an open spot.

The train home left me staring at my phone. I miss talking to someone. It used to be my spouse, but there's reasons that we've drifted apart a little. Maybe for the better, long-term. People with typical male traits are better problem solvers. People with typical female traits are better listeners and show more empathy. That's the experience I have. I wish I had someone with female traits in my life that I can just be good friends with. Somehow I ended up with male traits people.

A day like this leaves me hopeful, but makes me sad. I hope the sadness will move on again. I don't want it around me right now.