Hopscotch…A Jump in Life 15

*Before…
She heads back into the office and I look at Mom and Dad. “One of my friends wants to come here and visit and that might mean that she’ll be staying at our place if she’s allowed to…so…can she come over?”
Dad and Mom look at each other and Dad says. “We need to talk to her parent’s first kiddo.”
I nod. “I have their contact info here.”
I bring it up and show Dad who writes it down and he smiles. “Going to Tim’s you want anything?”
“A double-double?”
“Okay.”
He leaves and Mom stays and I hug her then I knock on the Doc’s office door then head inside to set her up with her own LJ account.

*And Now…

We’re not there that long either as I’m setting up Dr. Johansen with her LJ account and getting her a page done up and she’s opting for the bells and whistles of having a paid account and let her in on stuff on the site and some of the drama stuff kind of as a warning and kind of as a temptation and just from the way that she is typing that she’s pretty much a noob for sure.

I’m introducing her to the horror show that is Tumblr and especially the tags that have trans stuff on it and while there’s some great resources and people on there Tumblr’s like the maze of the minotaur and one wrong turn into the wrong tag and you can get really shocked or hurt and even triggered.

The radfem and the trans and gender critical tags are places that ANY trans person should avoid like they carried the plague. But there’s some excellent pro-trans tags too and things that are really good like clothing resources and even places to crash.

It’s some of the things that I do like about it and have seen carried over from there through links to my LJ page. It’s really good to know stuff like this and to have things that even if we don’t use them we can see them.

We’re actually kind of talking about that as I’m showing her stuff like how it kind of helps inside seeing stuff that’s not all out to get us and being critical of us or just hateful enough to bring you to tears.

Never, never ever read Janice Raymond’s books.

I couldn’t even get past excerpts that I seen on PK’s page while she was ranting about her and Sheila Jeffrey’s.

She looks at me. “These things these gender critical people bother you?”

I look at her. “Yeah, they take people like me and our lives and they lambaste us and paint us as bad people and deviants and they pretend that it’s all about class and other garbage.”

“It makes you angry?”

“It makes me angry and it makes me scared too.”

“Scared?”

“Read the stuff there in the tags, read what they’re saying and it’s not adults either it’s so many people that are my age and stuff.”

“It’s a big website they’re a really small group.”

“Yeah but they’re not alone, they’re not just the only ones that think that people like me are trash.”

“And this scares you?”

“It wouldn’t scare you? I don’t know what’s going on out there what the people that used to know me are like and what the people that live in town are like and I’ve seen people here…right fracking here in the building on the staff that have a problem with me.”

“Did someone say something?”

“No, no one said anything but I’ve already seem looks and I saw the barely there frowns that they gave me.”

“Your safe here no one’s going to hurt you while you’re here.”

“There’s a lot of ways to hurt people Doc.”

“If something happens though you’ll report it?”

“Yeah, because if I didn’t it just leaves them able to go and keep doing whatever.”

“You do know that if you just stayed as Shawn this wouldn’t be a thing that you’d have to face?”

I side-eye her, oh I side-eye her so hard. “If I kept living a lie than Sarah would end up being just as effing fake as Shawn and I’d just end up being a ghost. I’m not living through hell Doc, not for anybody or anything.”

She looks at me. “Transition is hard, dealing with people and all of the consequences both with the physical things that you’ll have to go through and all of the social stuff that will trail after you will be hard Sarah.”

I huff and cross my arms under my breasts…uhm…bra.

“I don’t care, I don’t care because I’m not going to give in Doc…It’s just really that I’m plenty scared of what’s going to come after everything that’s going on now.”

“What is going on now?”

“Oh Amnesia, Aphasia, lifelong back damage, likely learning disabilities…and the other stuff.”

“Other stuff?”

“Where’s the families? Where are the families of Shawn’s friends you’d think that people would know that I’m alive and that I’m awake, where are the cards from them or from my classmates…when’s the other shoe going to drop?’

“Who says that there’s another shoe to drop, you’ve already hit the benchmark.”

I twist my lips up in a sideways scrunch. “Okay…Thrown not dropped.”

She looks a little amused.

“Sarah, I really have no answers at this point but I will think on all of the things that you’ve mentioned and I will read up not just on your journal but those other things that you were talking about since in counseling you I’ll need a working knowledge of just the things that you will be facing as you go through your transition.”

I look at her…and slide my arms back from where they were folded to more of a relaxed place. “Okay…I guess I can deal with that.”

“Good, now I want to ask do you want me to inquire about the families of the boys that died in the crash with you?’

“Please…I mean if you can like do it quietly…I don’t want to like force myself on anyone y’know.”

She nods and she stands up and she walks me to the door. “Okay I will and I will be checking in now and then and I want to see you while you’re here every day.”

“Every day?”

“You’re going to be going through a lot yet with rehab and physio and there’s still thinks that might crop up we’ll just do thirty minute check ins and we can have a full session each Friday.”

“Uhm…” Okay that actually seems okay. “So like if the nurses and the people in physio drive me around the bend I can come in here and yell at you?”

“Yes kind of just like that.”

I nod a little as we head out of her office. “You know that I was worried, I have a lot of stuff that’s on there about bad therapists and stuff Doc.”

“Well I guess I’ll be reading about some of that then, honestly seeing these things will actually give me a whole better look into the things that you find interesting or anger you or other things as well as to let me see into your community and peer group.”

I look at her and then at Mom and Dad. “Actually speaking about my peer group one of my LJ friends was wanting to come here and visit.”

Dad’s like… “And we were talking to her and she seems like a nice kid and we’ve been talking to her parents as well and they seem pretty decent too.”

I look at him and bite my lip. “So she can come over?”

“Yes and if you can do without your mom and I for a while tomorrow we’re going to drive down and pick her up so we can actually meet her parents instead of talking to them on the phone and online.”

I can’t help it but I end up hugging him and he hugs me back.

And there it is the sniffles. (Sniffle.) “You guys are awesome, you sure it’s okay?”

He gives me a bit of a tighter squeeze that sort of sets off what the Doc just said about all of the stuff that they must have gone through with me and everything. It really, really means a whole hell of a lot that he and that she cares so much.

That he’s hugging me like hugging me is special.

……me…special.

Y’know it’s one of those visceral feelings more than anything else but it feels like feeling like I’m special was something that was pretty far removed from my life before this.