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  • Insider Issue 48 all four pages
  • Home
    • About
    • Get Involved
    • What and How
    • About Interviews
    • About Support Documents
    • Archives
    • FAQs
  • Excerpts
    • Quotes >
      • Awakenings
      • Only Ones/Finding Others
      • Language
      • Closet and Coming Out
      • Military
      • Religion
      • This and That
      • Info and resources
      • Marriage and Kids
      • Seeking Help
      • On Loss
    • Voices
    • Profiles >
      • Annalee Stewart
      • Beverly Hickock
      • Jean Mountaingrove
      • Ocie Perry
      • Ruth Silver
      • Ethyl Bronson
      • Marie Mariano
      • Vera Martin
      • Betty Shoemaker
  • Products
    • Newsletter
    • Our Books
    • DVD Our Stories
    • Order
  • Contact
  • A Three Way Ask
  • What OLOHP Women Are Up To
    • Laura Bock
    • Gaye Adegbalola
    • Kathy Prezbindowski
    • Ann Bannon
    • Tret Fure
    • Ruth Debra
    • Lillian Faderman
    • JS&C&M&M
  • Insider Issue 48 all four pages

Quotes about seeking professional help

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Betty, born 1924

I went to a psychiatrist. I decided this was not any kind of life. It was obviously unacceptable. If a person had ambition, they were not going to get anyplace with this lifestyle. The psychiatrist said, "What did you plan to do instead?" I said, "Well, there aren't too many options, are there? You can be celibate or you can be married."



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Sandy, born 1935
A friend recommended a therapist. I went to her and she said, "What seems to be the problem?" And I said, "I'm gay and I want to be straight." Couldn't use the word lesbian. She said, "Well, I don't think you've ever talked about trust or love, Sandy. Let's talk about love and trust, and then let's see which side of the fence you jump on." That hooked me in. I was totally hooked.  I knew I was going to be going to her. I worked a job and a half to be able to pay for my therapy. At the end of that two years, I never looked at another man, I accepted my lesbianism totally.  And I was a free woman.


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Joyce, born 1933
I was having a really hard time just trying to take care of these three kids. I was pretty, pretty depressed. The first thing the psychiatrist says to me was, “I think you’re having a struggle with your sexual identity.” It was so off the chart for me that I had no idea what he was saying to me. I think, in retrospect, it wasn’t that far back in psychoanalytic thinking that women who rejected and had difficulty with being a mother and taking care of children, they were the queer women. But I had no idea of that. I was there for some help and when he said that I really almost fell off the chair.


Anonymous, born 1936
I found myself a therapist who was a lesbian and feminist who really helped me understand what was going on, once I got beyond the stage of thinking I was sick. I believed what I had been told, that if you're a homosexual, you are mentally ill. But I had no evidence of my mental illness. Once I got to that point where I realized that it wasn't true, that what I was was me, and that it was right…  from my first sexual experience, I felt like this is what I am supposed to be. This is what's been missing in my life. I felt whole.


Anonymous, born 1933
My brother said he knew a psychologist and if I ever needed help along those lines, to just call. What the hell do you think? Just because I'm lesbian that I'm going to have psychological problems!


Anonymous, born 1927
The therapist's whole focus was to help me "resolve" my lesbianism by becoming more heterosexual, which, for me, meant I had to learn to keep my secret better.… Lesbianism was, indeed, looked upon by therapists as deviant behavior and, by doctors, as a disease.


Anonymous, born 1938
The therapist asked, "Do you know why you are here?" I looked straight at him and said, "Because I'm a lesbian." This was in 1954, and I don't think I'd ever used that word about myself. [It] was a declaration. That was like, "Leave me alone. This is who I am and don't fuss with me." He said, "You've chosen a very difficult lifestyle, and if you ever want to come back and talk, you're certainly welcome." I was very lucky. I know of people who have gone through shock treatments and things like that.


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Note sent to the OLOHP: What you have done is so important that I think even you don’t understand it. This will have a life of its own and be around way after we are gone. To have thought this up, seen the need, and assumed the effort to get it done is phenomenal. I really do salute you.
TF says: The women that the OLOHP has brought to us have lived remarkable lives, often solitary and private, and we are far richer for knowing these women, their struggles and their passion.
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