Of course, the more you fix, the deeper the next round of things to work on. Having sorted out my primary familial relationships, I’m now looking at my relationship to myself and my relationship with the world. This includes gender stuff, since a big part of both those relationships is gender. Gender is a big part of how we view ourselves and a big part of how we interact with the outside world. It informs everything from tone of voice and speech patterns to clothing and body language. It’s very complex. It’s a social construct, yes, but since I still live in the society that shaped it, it affects me. A lot.
My shiny new therapist and I are meeting every week now, which should be helpful. She was raised as a girl, so she groks what that’s like in a way my previous therapist (raised as a boy and pretty unaware of gender theory) really did not. So this is good.

Spiral staircase from The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin
But good grief it’s scary.
I’m going to have to make a conscious effort to work on this crap, too — I’m very good at wiggling my way out of working on stuff I’m scared of.
I’ve worked on a lot of these things before, too, which feels kind of strange. Like I’m walking down a spiral staircase inside a tower, and the pillars holding the staircase up are different things to work on. Each time I go around, I go to a deeper level, but I also circle past the same pillars. Having made it past a pillar in a previous level doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily be easy to make it past the same pillar on the next floor down.
One step at a time, though. I have to remember it’s not a race. Plus, everything in the staircase is me, really, so that’s a bit comforting.
I’ve come this far. I bet I can make it at least a but further.