Mental Wellness During Social Gender Transition

This week I spoke at the National Trans Health Conference in Atlanta, GA about Mental Wellness During Social Transition.  It’s important to stay mentally well during your transition and it’s important to take care of your mental health.  When you are transgender, and you first start to transition, it can be exciting, and you can feel great and feel affirmed, but there can still be times when you feel gender dysphoria or feel unsure about your body or how you are presenting.

Using Coping Skills

If you are still feeling gender dysphoria during your transition, I recommend using coping skills to help your metal wellness.  Something I tell my clients when they feel dysphoria is that their body is a vessel for who they will be after their transition, so it’s still important to take care of your body during your social transition.  You are still going to have the same heart and the same lungs after you transition as you do now.

Some coping skills you can use to stay mentally well during your social transition are to journal or to blog.  Some people start blogs or even vlogs, video blogs to help them with their transition.  This can be helpful to help you find your voice.

Some people start Instagram accounts and document their social or medical transition as well.

Another coping skill while you are transitioning genders is to take a mindful walk.  Walk outside and feel the air against your skin or the hot sun against your clothes.  Notice how this feels to you and take in the sights you see along the way of your walk.

Practice Self Compassion

I use mindful self-compassion in therapy with my transgender clients, so we practice being kind to ourselves.  When you are transitioning, it’s very important to be kind to yourself and your own best cheerleader.  Some of the ways you can do this are to think of the positive qualities or have or the positive qualities you want to be known for and turn them into “I am” statements.  For example, if you want to be known as a kind person, tell yourself, “I am a kind person”.

Aside from being mindful of your own self-esteem, it’s a good idea to be mindful of your own safety when you socially transition. Look out for your own mental health.  If you find yourself feeling depressed or if you ever have thoughts about wanting to hurt yourself, seek out the help of a therapist or counselor.

Reach Out For Therapy

As a therapist, I help people stay mentally well throughout their transition.  In therapy, we process difficult emotions people have and we also process things like coming out at work or school or asking your boss or co-workers to use a different name or pronouns for you.

If you have a good bit of gender dysphoria, we work together to process those feelings and practice techniques to use when you are feeling dysphoric.  Ultimately, therapy helps you stay mentally well during your social and medical transition, so you can work through any of the tough feelings and emotions you are having.

If you are thinking about beginning to transition, or if you have already started to transition and you are having some tough feelings, reach out for a free consultation or appointment so we can start working together for you to be emotionally well.  You can reach me at 404-800-7586 or you can contact me here on my contact page.

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118 E. Maple Street
Decatur, GA 30030

katie@katieleikam.com
404-948-6186

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