Hypnosis

Hypnosis

I stared at the laptop screen blankly. It was September 5th, 2023—three days before my birthday—and only five minutes had passed since the Zoom call had begun, but I was already starting to zone out. My conversation with Colleen, my hypnotherapist and life coach, started with her asking me why--for the third week in a row—I hadn’t done the homework we’d agreed upon. I was supposed to have written a new memoir piece—or at least completed one I’d started years ago with my former writing coach—but I hadn’t written a single word.

“Why do you think you haven’t been writing?” she asked. 

“I don’t know, Colleen.” I said, “I haven’t done a lot of things I said I would do this week.”

“Yes, but this is something you said you wanted to do. What’s been stopping you?”

I let out a deep sigh. I looked up, wishing the gods would illuminate me with some wisdom. Colleen’s face gave off no expression at all. She was good at that, being placid. Whereas I always felt like a powder keg. Yes! That was it. 

“It’s just—I mean, I walk around all the time so pissed off. Like, I’m angry all the time.”

“Who are you angry at?” 

“This is gonna sound ridiculous, but it’s my mom. I’m carrying around so much anger at her and it colors everything I do. It doesn’t make any sense—we haven’t talked in years!”

Colleen nodded, and her sleek black hair, perfectly cut and straight, swung back and forth like curtains on each side of her face. 

“When was the first time you remember being angry at her?”

For a second, the question perplexed me. My mind played several memory reels of times my mom and I fought. The scenes kept going farther back in time until I saw it clearly.

“I was seven. I was trying on her slip in the basement next to the wringer washer. There was a full-length mirror there and I was pretending I was Princess Leia. My mother came downstairs and caught me. She was furious. She beat me with a wooden spoon with holes drilled into it. She yelled at me for a long time.”

 Colleen nodded again, and this time it was almost like a bow. She even closed her eyes when her chin went down and back up again. Her expression remained a placid lake, but I could feel the reverence through the screen. Well, she is an empath, I thought. She must be guarding herself from my heightened emotions.

“What do you wish she had done differently?” she asked. 

“Lots of things,” I said, a little too sarcastic for my taste. That meant my walls were coming up.

“Storm,” she said, “Hypnosis has the ability to help us change how we perceive the past. If we can imagine how we wished a moment to be different, we can shift our emotions about it. We can recreate our story, and be free from the trauma that keeps us blocked in the present. What do you wish your mother had done differently?”

“I wish she had been curious,” I said. “I wish she had asked me why I was dressing up in her clothes—and we could have talked about it and if she had been curious—” I paused, but the words demanded to be said. They poured out of me like a newly discovered underground spring. “If she had been curious, we could have talked about how I really felt about my body. And if she’d been supportive, I would have transitioned at an early age.” 

Colleen nodded as if she heard this kind of thing everyday. Maybe she did. But the voices in my head weren’t so understanding. Yeah, they said, but you she wasn’t curious and she wouldn’t have been supportive. You didn’t transition. You’re too old now. Too hairy, too masculine. It’s too late. You’re stuck like this. 

Colleen cleared her throat, and the voices dispersed, 

“If you’re open to it, I’d like to take you on a journey. In a hypnotic state, you’ll go back to that moment in time and recreate it as you wished it to be. We can do it right now if you want to.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. Images of me in the moment before my mother found me played on repeat in my mind. The feel of the silken slip, the mirror showing me my true self, the delight I felt in my heart—I wanted that back now. I wanted that little girl in the mirror back—before she was beaten into pretending to be a boy. 

“You can stay seated as you are right now, or you can lie down,” said Colleen. 

I was glad to hear that. I couldn’t fathom lying down—too many voices inside me were raising objections, sounding alarms, frightened of what might happen if lost control.

The supportive seat of my leather-bound kneeling chair was enough. 

Colleen had me focus on my breathing. I think she might have even counted for me. I don’t remember exactly how we got there, but suddenly I was back in time, standing in front of the mirror again. 

This time, when my mother came down the stairs, she called out to me without fear in her voice. She put her hand on my shoulder. She looked into the mirror with me.

“What is it you see?” she asked.

“I see me,” I said.

“And who are you?”

“I am a girl.”

I know there were moments when Colleen asked me questions within the hypnotic state. I recall that she kept asking, “What’s happening now?” 

I kept telling her the new story while tears streamed down my face. 

I answered her evenly, calmly. An aura of serenity enveloped me. I felt seen, protected, and understood, by both Colleen and my mother. In this new story, mom was my protector, and an ally. 

“She wants to know how long I’ve felt this way,” I told Colleen.

“What do you say?” 

“I’ve always known I was this way, but I didn’t have the words. Going to the movie theater to see Snow White and Star Wars helped me know for sure.” I sobbed, felt the tears soaking the shoulders of my tee shirt.

“I put on your clothes to feel like a princess,” I told my mother.

This time, she looks into the mirror at me lovingly. She caresses the space between my shoulders. I can tell she’s trying to process all of this, but she’s choosing in this moment to take it all in. She’s fully present. 

“Well, cinching my slip with a clothespin just won’t do,” she said. “We’re going to have to make you a real princess dress.” 

I don’t remember if that was the last of the new story, and I’m not sure how I came out of the hypnotic state. I do know it took me a few minutes to return to my body and this time, because the new story remained in my mind, vivid and real, and I wanted to bask in it. In fact, it had superimposed itself over my old memory. The anger that had coursed through my veins before the session felt significantly lessened, my body lighter. I laid my hand upon my heart and felt my soaking wet tee shirt clinging to my skin. 

September 7, 2023—I came out to my primary care doctor as trans. 

October 16, 2023—I met with my new HRT doctor to order bloodwork.

December 18, 2023—I received my first shot of estradiol. 

July 6, 2025—I wrote this story.

~SA

Author's Note: To see the Princess Leia moment as it happened in real-life, read Princess here.