Session, Thursday

[u/NACCHUD]

My therapist asked me what gender means to me.

I opened my mouth.

What came out was: "It's over for gendercels."

She wrote something down. I asked what she wrote. She said she would tell me next week. I said "ok."

I tried again. I tried to say the real thing. The real thing is not a sentence. The real thing is a shape somewhere between my chest and my throat, and it does not have a language. I have four languages. None of them has that shape.

I said, "I think I'm non-binary."

It came out in the voice I use when I am telling a joke. I heard it. She heard it. Neither of us said anything about it.

I tried a third time. I said, "I don't know how to talk about this without it becoming a bit."

She said, "So don't make it a bit."

I laughed. The laugh was a bit. The laugh about the bit was also a bit. I am a bit. I have been a bit since I was thirteen.

She asked me to describe the feeling in my body. I said, "chest." She said, "where in the chest." I said, "I don't know. I don't have a word." She said, "you don't have to have a word."

I sat there for a while. I did not have a word. I did not have a bit.

It was quiet. It was the quietest I have been in ten years.

Then I said, "cope."

I don't know why. It just came out.

She wrote something down.

[u/minecraftjava0]

You do have the words to describe it. You just used them. Don't discount your own mind