Our survey

[Nina Williams]

I'm the psychologist who's working with Betsy on the sexuality survey. We appreciate all of your responses. I wanted to ask you another question, which will help us educate therapists about intersex conditions, life experiences, and treatment by medical and psychotherapy clinicians. What part did social workers, psychologists, family therapists, and psychiatrits. play in your treatment as children and as grown-ups?

Most of us are reluctant to talk about these experiences in public, even on the net, but if there was ever a good reason to, it's because when therapists don't know anything about intersexed experience, it's much harder to bring it up or to count on a helpful answer. I know a few intersexed people who have had good experiences in adulthood, and others who haven't wanted to go into a doctor's office of any sort whenever they could avoid it. I've also heard from others who were shamed, disbelieved, or treated as delusional. I know that that most therapists practicing today have never knowingly met an intersexed patient, and I've yet to meet one who didn't want to learn more once they did. Tell me what would help you seek counseling when you've decided to, and how the therapist could help when you do, and Betsy and I will tell them so they can learn how to do better. You can e-mail me privately at Psych82654@<hidden> or here on the bulletin board. You don't need to identify yourself or be more specific about your experience than is comfortable.

Thanks,
Nina

[Az1]

soley on my opinion .......
children that are born are a blessing in any way shape or form.
a parent is too not lie to their children , they are to be a teacher and help in anyway shape or form to that childs needs.
When this bond was broken by not being told growing up you were not normal and that later in life that you have something that you were never told about growing up.
Had I know before I reached adulthood I would have asked
How do I cope in a society that does not accept difference ?.
How do I cope within myself to strive to be normal ?.
lol, what is normal.
Az 1

Muhoe

[Dandara]

What is normal?
Normal was whatever it was that I wasn't.

And most of my life, I never really knew HOW I was different, only that I was in some unspeakable, indescribable way.

I spent much of my life aspiring to be normal.
How sick is that concept??

If I was a blessing, then I never really felt like one. I was a botched blessing, maybe.

It is a universal truth that the one thing we must do for all children is accept them unconditionally. How then, do we IS folks square that away? No one ever accepted us unconditionally. In fact, our lives began with conditions ~ lots of them.

[claraJane]

Were it possible to order my own bloodwork and prescribe my own drugs I would probably be foolish enough to treat myself and never see a doctor. As it is I change doctors until I find one bright enough to listen to their patients and consider that, just possibly, their patients know something about their bodies.

As far as psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, etc goes, I will not likely ever seek help there again. When I was living over the edge, near death, all they could think of was how to "encourage" me to continue in the gender they had selected for me.

I did try once. Twenty years after changing my legal status to female I had lunch with a counselor who, in theory, was familiar with intersex and transsex cases. I asked her if she knew of an endocrinologist in town who treated IS patients. Her reply was that, before she could refer me to an endocrinologist, she'd have to counsel me. And she didn't seem particularly happy that I hadn't had therapy before I changed my legal status. (The SOC and all you know.)

I recently participated in a study that was trying to figure out why adults who, as children, spent alot of time with doctors, don't like doctors. Uh Duh!

Please don't take it personally, Nina. I appreciate that some of you really do try. I just haven't found a therapist yet that I'm willing to pay to make me stop disliking therapists.

Thanks,
Jane :o)

[Nina Williams]

Dear Jane,

There's no reason to apologize. Your experience is exactly the reason why articles need to be written and presentations done by not only therapists, but by intersex adults themselves. A therapist who hasn't heard a story like yours isn't likely to appreciate how offensive it is to be treated like your logical questions about your body should be met with suspicion and withholding. Other intersex people have told me about being greeted with disbelief and having to spend their money to educate a well-being but poorly informed therapist. Although I do my best to appreciate all the ways in which this sort of counseling can be destructive, stories like these make the point more powerfully.

Thanks, Jane,
Nina

[Victoria]

Dear Nina,

I never saw a counselor as a child and my parents never talked to me about being different. I always felt different and knew I looked different from other girls. I carried this shame and sense of being different through my childhood to my adulthood without ever talking to anyone about how I felt.

I started seeing a psychologist a couple years ago and just recently told her about being IS. It was very hard for me to do and I only brought it up after a year of being in therapy. I couldn't even tell her myself. Instead, I had her read an a story about someone who was intersexed. After she was done reading the story, I was almost certain that she was going to reject me but she was very accepting and it was such a great relief to finally have been able to talk to someone who could know and accept the part of me that had been hidden for so long. My therapist told me that she had another client who was IS as well. Additionally, she is very open-minded in terms of sexual orientation and transfolks which is partially why I opened up to her about being IS.

So, I had a very positive experience coming-out as IS to my therapist as an adult. Additionally, I was able to educate her about intersex and this was healing for me too. Having a therapist to talk to and Bodies Like Ours has been such a blessing for me. Finally, for the first time in my life, I feel accepted by people and not so alone. As a psychologist in training, I definitely want to help other IS folks come to terms about themselves. In addition, I would like to work with children and families of IS people. Thank you for all the good work you and Betsy are doing.

Victoria

[A.P. Morgan]

Dear Nina:

I went to a community mental health center after my self destructive behavior and two nervous breakdowns scared me. Plus, going into hysterics everytime I went to an Endocrinologist made me think I was going crazy. All the blood test for CAH came back with SUPER levels, so I knew it wasn't physiological.

Even through all of this my Endo did not want to put me on any drugs like prozac even though a psychiatrist wanted to put me on lithium only after seeing me one time. I'm forever grateful that he said that he didn't want me to go down that road.

I had come close to killing myself twice. I wasn't actively seeking suicide but if I figured that if I died by drinking to pass out or if I rapped my car around a poll from speeding so much the better. Also, I would play a game with how many sleeping pills I took.

I'm mad as hell that I live in a society that thought a clitoridectomy was a good solution for me.

Someone doesn't look like the "norm" so they must be butchered ? I liked who I was, psychological tests showed that I could of waited. I was born to be unique, I was ok the way I was born. Who are these so called "normal" people to judge what is different. Why did they want to destroy me ?

I would of had surgery but in my own time. If the medical establishment can not gaurentee to make it better. They never should of touched me. They pipe up that they do the surgery better now. So what, screw them ..it doesn't help me now. I pray that it is really better for the babies of today but time will tell.

OK, back to the subject. I went to a wonderful psychologist that was in his last year of college. He helped me with anger management issues and rational behavior modification. Back then I couldn't even say the word clitoris because I was so in shock that the medical community decided anything that I did have was to be scooped away. At the end I was screaming CLITORIS ..CLITORIS at him. We talked about body issues and how it is OK to be different. I had issues with women, I seeth that they take for granted what GOD GAVE THEM. I've gotten better about all this, I know realize that it's OK that other people take what they have for granted.

All of this happened in the early 90's, what a stormy time off my life. I've given up hope that any man will ever be comfortable with the surgeries. Although, they haven't had a problem who the actual Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and I've told them all the details.

I've never felt bad about what I was born with. Why would I feel bad about me ? (lol). I've concluded that gender is subjective anyway. Having female and male qualities is the best way to be and it's the only way I can be, you go crazy hiding one side of yourself.

The parents and the surgeons did what they thougt was best. I don't blame them. I love my parents more then anything, who knew that I enjoyed being the odd marble in the bunch ? Surgery didn't make it "normal" (lol)

I'm adopted and was given away because of the CAH (I have my records) Knowing that you were dumped because of a birth defect that your own family gave. Does make you a little bitter right from the start. I'm taking my adopted parents on a trip to Barbados this year. Those people that tossed me aside have no idea what they lost.

I have no shame because none of this is my fault, shame is taught to you by someone anyway.

Back to the darkside of the moon. (smile)

A.P. Morgan Intersexed Princess

[Nina Williams]

Thanks to both of you for your responses to our query. Together, you cover a wide range of the emotional territory that comes with being IS and having to figure out what to do with it in the world, including the therapy world. I'm relieved to hear that each of you had a good therapist in your past, and I'm beginning to think what makes a therapist good is a willingness to hear the story without judgment and work on whatever issue you want to work on, (rather than following some prescribed agenda about gender identity and role compliance). The few therapists I've met who have worked with IS clients all talk about their gratitude and amazement that what we were taught in school never included this, and the talks I give to medical and psychological audiences are always so gratifying because of the number of doctors, nurses, and counselors who want to learn more and change things in their workplace. Victoria, your working toward a psychology degree will influence everyone you train and work with in ways you may never know. AP, I hope you find someone to talk to who is as helpful to you as your counselor in the 90s was; I think this adjustment is a life-long task, because all the information and sharing of the past few years in the IS world are going to stir something in each of us, not just excitement but rage at the chances we didn't have.

Nina Williams

[Aimee P. Morgan]

Dear Nina:

I have no need to talk with someone now. Thank you very much. Counseling that is longer then two years is not helping the client in a productive way.

You stated," This adjustment is a life long task"What are you assuming here? This is no adjustment, I've been this way my whole life.


At the time the therapy that I needed in the early 1990's helped me to deal with the anger that developed as a by- product of dealing with the medical establishment and the realization of how the surgery screwed me over.

Useing the term "IS WORLD" seperates us from the rest of the world. Why do you wish to make me seperate? I'm female, I just have a broader view then the social norm of female. I'm most comfortable in the space that seperates female and male

"What rage against the chances that I didn't have" ? I'm having the life that I am supposed to due to the genetic draw of CAH. My life experiences or lack of are happening for a reason. If I never had CAH, I never would of contributed my own experiences to the world to make it better for someone else with CAH. Also, I never would of had the emparthy to help the clients in my career field.

It does stir in disgust in me that people with Intersexed conditions are trotted out news or talk shows as example of what is different. When it would be more positive to discuss why this society feels a need to stigmatize, destroy others that are a completely natural AND NORMAL OCCURANCE.

Sincerely,

Aimee P. Morgan

[Nina Williams]

Dear Aimee,

I agree wholeheartedly with this point you made:

"It does stir in disgust in me that people with Intersexed conditions are trotted out news or talk shows as example of what is different. When it would be more positive to discuss why this society feels a need to stigmatize, destroy others that are a completely natural AND NORMAL OCCURANCE."

I apologize for how my post left you feeling I was trying to stigmatize you in any way. On rereading what you wrote, I realize you were writing about events long ago, and I'd thought the trip to the community mental health center happened recently. What I meant to say is that many of the intersexed people I've met describe their experiences as traumatic. Because I work with a lot of trauma survivors, I see traumatic feelings that were resolved get revived at different points in their lives that are reminscent of the original trauma, like contact with doctors, seeing IS people exposed in public forums, or navigating a sexual life. Of course, you're the one who decides what you need.

Nina

[claraJane]

Dear Nina,

Do you also see post-traumatic stress problems in us? Do you think that contribute to our problems with doctors?

Why should this be so traumatic? I walked away from a plane crash. I've experienced several fairly dangerous emergency landings. But when I board a plane it doesn't cross my mind that this one might not land where and when it's supposed to.

But I nearly always dissociate on the way to a doctor's office and spend the entire time of the exam somewhere else.

Kind regards,
Jane :)

[Nina Williams]

Dear Jane,

I understand that there are some intersexed people who do not feel traumatized by their treatment, but I have not met any yet. I've had more experiences talking with CAH women who were subjected to genital surgeries early in life, repeated exams and follow-up procedures, with no information about what was happening, and parents who had been instructed not to explain to their daughter. The deceit and the surgical trauma of post-operative pain, scarring, and diminished sexual functioning are commonplace, but these circumstances also neatly accomplish a psychological defense of forgetting in small children, who are unable to voice complaints or prevent any sort of treatment. These are the conditions that Shopper (1995) described as particularly traumatic if the child is younger, the external support lessen, ego capabilities are not yet complete, and there is no preparation for the surgery. All of these conditions are met in the intersexed children who received surgical treatment in early childhood.

You tell me whether your dissociating in the doctor's helps you forget the events you described. You're certainly not the first person to want this. People react to trauma in different ways, and to some more than others. I wonder what other readers might think about this topic. Do other people avoid doctors' offices or disconnect when they're there? What's helped?

Best,
Nina

[Natasha]

Hi,

I find it impossible even now to express how I feel, about what I was put through as a child. It is more than difficult to express how medical mistreatment while growing up, affects me now as an adult. In fact I do not understand in what ways my past affects me.

There have been several times in my life, when it began to surface and overwhelm me. I have repressed my feelings in order to cope. I am still frightened of my anger, and even more terrified, of being engulfed again in the despair and confusion which was my life, until I reached age 40.

To this present day, the very thought of having to go see the very nice woman who is my doctor, fills me with panic and a feeling of hopelessness. There have been times when this was obvious, and then I felt extremely embarrassed, even ashamed, for still being a mess.

I have real doubts if I can ever be free of all of this. All of my past attempts to get help with it have proved to be a waste of time. The only thing I can think to do now, is to refuse to use other issues to distract myself from what is inside me regarding this, and to face it on my own. I seem to have no other choice, since I find myself unable to trust others.

I wish all of you better luck.

Natasha