Sorry I missed this.

I just want to clarify that I have never said GD is not affected by the trauma in our lives. I said that I do not think it is ROOTED in the trauma in our lives. I think it can make it cut deeper and hurt more and give it a particular "flavor" if that makes sense. But I just don't like to see everyone looking back over their lives for "the reason" when the real reason is very likely that our GD is a totally natural thing just like the desire to have a child in the first place is. no one should question that there is something wrong with them because they have GD.

I do not intend the following to be directed at Bambi, it's just my ruminations on the topic. I wish you the very best, Bambi, and I hope that the counselor can help with your feelings in other areas of your life.

I personally feel like a lot of the people who develop this very severe type of GD where they truly feel their life is ruined, if they had gotten their desired gender, might simply have gone on to find something ELSE that didn't work out for them in their lives and obsess over that. I have seen people do this, both people with BG families who are lamenting that they never had the career they wanted or the marriage that they wanted or their dream house or whatever else and in people who GET their DG and STILL aren't happy. I see people in that boat all the time. They turn around and start obsessing over a sister for their daughter, or their marriage, or their career, or their body image. When you look to an outside element to fix an internal problem, it just never works.

It can be healthy to look at our gender desire thru a different lens - I just feel that the approach of "I am a broken person because of my trauma and that is why I feel this way and the only thing that can fix it is a relationship with my child wherin the wrongs are made right and the wounds are all healed" is probably not the correct approach. May be better to say "My feelings of gender desire are natural but I am allowing my personal history to color them in such a way that it is making me feel that it's the solution to all my problems in life." It can actually keep you from looking for OTHER solutions to negative emotions, to finding other ways to deal with the pain and trauma that we all carry with us. It adds to the feelings of desperation because the only way to solve the problem is to get this "dream child". It's just not fair to put all that on a child.