Gender Identity Disorder, Trauma, and Stress-Related Disorders

Gender Identity Disorder, Trauma, and Stress-Related Disorders
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1 Describe the clinical situation in detail. What feelings, prejudices, and biases did you experience during your clinical experience?
A case involving a 15-year-old male, CM, was one of the first clinical cases that altered how I viewed mental disorders, especially those that involve gender identity and expression. CM was born male but felt like he was a female stuck in a male’s body. He/she also does not find activities and things categorized for the male population as something that he/she would be interested in. This led him/her to feel confused and have a sense of not belonging anywhere. CM also shares that this is something that he/she has felt for many years already and was already there for as long as he/she can remember.
The family background of CM is one of the significant factors that influence how he/she feels about himself/herself. They are not aware of CM’s frustration, but it is bothering CM because he/she knows that his/her family finds his/her issue unacceptable. After all, they are active members of a religious group. His/her parents are also not open to gender issues and condemn it as a sin, and by the way his/her parents comment on people who are queer, CM feels that they will not understand him/her if ever he/she decides to open up about his/her issues. Due to the strict and conservative nature of his/her parents, CM has strived to please them ever since he/she was a child. He/she has high grades and is part of his/her school’s baseball team. CM confessed that he/she finds it tiring because if given a choice, he/she would want to try other activities, but he/she is not sure if it is something his/her parents would approve of since there are scholarship offers for CM in the future.
CM did not dare tell anyone about his/her thoughts because of how he/she had successfully put up a macho image in front of his family and friends. He/she also admits that he/she is very conscious about what other people in his/her school think, especially his/her friends, as he/she is someone they go to for advice, trusting that he/she can all figure out things which is the exact opposite of what CM is feeling. CM already feels burnout to go to school and continue with this facade, so he/she wanted to seek some help that would not immediately result in a fight or harsh words.
The situation of CM made me realize how mental disorders can be truly invisible to the eye of an outsider. We are not aware of what a person is feeling, so being kind and considerate even with the little things will be a big deal for those struggling. In the current generation, wherein being queer or having a different gender identity from the one you are born with is already familiar, I tend to overlook how an individual may genuinely feel when placed in that particular situation because it is a more serious matter when you are already the one dealing with the issues. Sometimes, it is easy to assume that it is already something every day, but it is not the case for everyone.
2 How did you manage your anxieties, feelings, prejudices, and biases?
I am hearing about the high grades, go...