You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

212. The Most Dangerous Moment
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[00:00:00] Stephanie Winn: What you are working toward over many such conversations is a pattern in your child's [00:00:05] nervous system. I opened up to my parent something, okay, happened. I could do that again. You [00:00:10] are not trying to win a single conversation. You are trying to change the long-term relationship [00:00:15] between your child and the experience of vulnerability with you.

[00:00:19] SKot: You [00:00:20] must be some kind of therapist,[00:00:25]

[00:00:25] Stephanie Winn: so I will be reading you my essay. Yes, and the most [00:00:30] dangerous moment in the conversation, what to do and what not to do. When your [00:00:35] child finally opens up, most of the time your child shows you nothing. [00:00:40] She is composed, contained, going about her life with a kind of deliberate [00:00:45] blankness that can feel almost aggressive in its thoroughness.

[00:00:48] Stephanie Winn: You've been watching her for [00:00:50] months, maybe years, waiting for the seams to show because you know they are [00:00:55] there. And then one day out of nowhere they do, she lets something slip. [00:01:00] A flash of urgency, a spike of anxiety, a demand that [00:01:05] seems disproportionate to the surface issue. In that moment, you are looking as [00:01:10] something real.

[00:01:10] Stephanie Winn: The question is what to do with it. These moments appear [00:01:15] in all kinds of forms. A request that seems like a simple logistical [00:01:20] preference turns out to carry an urgency you cannot quite account for. And when you look [00:01:25] closer, you realize it is not about logistics at all. A plan that involves [00:01:30] other people produces a flicker of alarm.

[00:01:33] Stephanie Winn: She needs to know exactly who [00:01:35] will be there, what they know, how she will be referred to an ordinary [00:01:40] social situation that should feel easy instead produces attention. You can feel in [00:01:45] the room. A low grade vigilance that gives itself away only if you know to look [00:01:50] for it. To the untrained eye, these look like small, practical concerns, [00:01:55] the kind of thing any teenager might feel sensitive about, but they are not [00:02:00] small.

[00:02:00] Stephanie Winn: They're fractal windows. Moments in which the entire architecture of the [00:02:05] anxiety that is organizing your child's life becomes briefly visible. What you are [00:02:10] seeing in those moments is the psychological cost of the trans identity playing out in real [00:02:15] time. Living as a gender you are not requires constant impression [00:02:20] management, a permanent vigilance about who knows what, who might [00:02:25] clock you.

[00:02:25] Stephanie Winn: What institutional record might betray you at 15. [00:02:30] This can feel like a manageable project. Your child may genuinely believe that if she [00:02:35] just controls enough variables, she can make it work indefinitely. What you see, [00:02:40] looking at it from the outside is a leaky tire being continuously pumped. [00:02:45] She does not see it that way yet, and that gap between what she believes [00:02:50] is possible and what you understand to be true is what you are working with.

[00:02:54] Stephanie Winn: The temptation in [00:02:55] these moments, especially if you have been carrying this fear and grief for a long time, [00:03:00] is to say everything at once. You have been rehearsing the conversation in your [00:03:05] head for years. You know exactly where this path leads. You want to [00:03:10] describe the whole arc. The increasing difficulty of passing the [00:03:15] medicalization that gets proposed as a solution, the sexual isolation, [00:03:20] the psychological toll, and you want her to see it all.

[00:03:24] Stephanie Winn: I understand [00:03:25] that impulse completely, but that conversation, however accurate and [00:03:30] necessary, is not available to you in this moment. It is too much. [00:03:35] She will shut down, walk away, or escalate. What you will have [00:03:40] accomplished is confirming for her that opening up to you is dangerous. So [00:03:45] instead of the whole tangled ball of rope, we are looking for the outermost knot.

[00:03:49] Stephanie Winn: You [00:03:50] cannot untie it all at once, but you can find the one knot that is [00:03:55] accessible right now. Work it loose, and then see what opens up next. [00:04:00] The fractal quality of these moments is that any one of them handled [00:04:05] well, contains the seed of every conversation you eventually want to [00:04:10] have. You do not need to name all of it today.

[00:04:13] Stephanie Winn: You just need to name what is [00:04:15] right in front of you. The tool I want to put in your hands for these moments is the [00:04:20] empathic guess. An empathic guess is not a question. It is not an [00:04:25] accusation. It is a tentative, careful statement that names what you think [00:04:30] the other person might be feeling. It sounds like, it seems like you're worried that I'm [00:04:35] going to say something that makes you uncomfortable or more simply.

[00:04:39] Stephanie Winn: It seems like [00:04:40] there's a lot of fear here. You are not claiming to know the full story. You are not [00:04:45] diagnosing, you are just reflecting back gently what is showing [00:04:50] itself to you. The key is that you are naming the emotion, not the content. [00:04:55] Not. You are afraid I'll out you, but you seem really afraid right [00:05:00] now.

[00:05:00] Stephanie Winn: You are meeting the emotional reality before you meet the ideological one. [00:05:05] Now I'm going to interrupt my reading of the essay to put a little asterisk. That last [00:05:10] statement was not the best example of what I'm talking about. So here where it says that you [00:05:15] wouldn't say you're afraid I'll out, you. Um, you might [00:05:20] actually say that in the right context because that's still acknowledging the [00:05:25] emotion and what the kid is worried about.

[00:05:27] Stephanie Winn: The reason to stay away from. [00:05:30] Specifically saying, I'll out you in that, it really depends on context, but it's that you're [00:05:35] not trying to get into an argument over outing them or not. But [00:05:40] what I see when parents kind of miss the mark is that they tend to stay more in the logical [00:05:45] rather than the emotional register, especially people who do mental, [00:05:50] uh, labor for work, people who are very intelligent and analytical.

[00:05:54] Stephanie Winn: Or just [00:05:55] depending on their kind of stress response, a lot of parents have a hard time dropping down from the head into the [00:06:00] heart, so they have a hard time just naming and staying with the emotions, or they get [00:06:05] so distracted and bothered by the things that their kid is saying that are logically or factually [00:06:10] untrue or ideologically that pull them into an argument.

[00:06:14] Stephanie Winn: So this [00:06:15] isn't really the best example in this essay. The, um, you're afraid I'll out you part [00:06:20] because it does at least acknowledge what the kid is feeling. What I really wanna encourage [00:06:25] people to stay away from is getting lost in the weeds of the details and missing the emotion [00:06:30] entirely. Alright, so that's my interject.

[00:06:33] Stephanie Winn: I'm going to go back to the essay. [00:06:35] Now, when an empathic guest lands close to the truth, something predictable [00:06:40] happens. The other person opens up, they say yes, or they say something that [00:06:45] functions like yes, and then they keep going. More comes out. [00:06:50] This is almost always experienced by parents as both exciting and immediately [00:06:55] threatening, because what comes out is often painful.

[00:06:58] Stephanie Winn: It may be [00:07:00] blaming, it may contain accusations about you. It may be factually [00:07:05] inaccurate or wildly distorted. It may describe you in ways that feel deeply [00:07:10] unfair and right there. Right in that moment when she has just for [00:07:15] the first time in months actually said something real is the most [00:07:20] dangerous point in the whole process, it is dangerous because every instinct you have [00:07:25] is going to push you to defend yourself.

[00:07:27] Stephanie Winn: She said something untrue. She blamed you for [00:07:30] something that was not your fault, or she exaggerated or left out the part where she bears [00:07:35] responsibility and the urge to correct that. To set the record straight. [00:07:40] To say, actually that is not what happened. That urge is completely [00:07:45] natural and in this particular moment, almost entirely [00:07:50] counterproductive.

[00:07:50] Stephanie Winn: If you follow it, you have just closed the door, you spent months waiting to [00:07:55] open. There is a second danger that runs alongside the first, and in some [00:08:00] ways it is harder to resist. It is not just that she may blame you [00:08:05] unfairly. It is also that what she says may be genuinely wrong about [00:08:10] reality. Not just exaggerated or one-sided, but factually, [00:08:15] ideologically distorted a version of events that has been filtered through a framework you believe is [00:08:20] harming her.

[00:08:21] Stephanie Winn: She may say something about her identity or about what she [00:08:25] needs or about what you have failed to understand. You know, to be [00:08:30] false in a deep and consequential way. And the poll to correct that [00:08:35] distortion is not petty defensiveness. It feels like an obligation, [00:08:40] like letting it stand. Unchallenged is a form of complicity, but here is [00:08:45] what you need to hold onto in that moment.

[00:08:47] Stephanie Winn: You are not endorsing what she [00:08:50] says by choosing not to argue with it right now. You are simply [00:08:55] recognizing that the emotional opening she has just offered you is more valuable [00:09:00] in this moment than any single point you could win. The correction [00:09:05] will have its time. This opening may not come again for months.[00:09:10]

[00:09:10] Stephanie Winn: Here is what is actually happening when your child starts talking after an empathic [00:09:15] guess. She is having an experience she craves and rarely gets, which is [00:09:20] the experience of being seen and heard without immediately being corrected. We [00:09:25] all crave this. Children crave it acutely. When you make an empathic [00:09:30] guess that lands, you are giving her a taste of something she has probably been [00:09:35] hungry for.

[00:09:36] Stephanie Winn: And her response, the continued talking, the additional [00:09:40] disclosures, even the blaming is evidence that she wants more of it. [00:09:45] That is not a crisis. That is the walls coming down. Your [00:09:50] job is not to let them back up again. So what do you do instead of defending, [00:09:55] you keep listening. You make another empathic guess, or you offer a [00:10:00] reflection.

[00:10:00] Stephanie Winn: So what I'm hearing is that you feel you stay in the emotional [00:10:05] register. You do not switch to the factual one. You treat what she's saying, not as [00:10:10] a set of claims to be evaluated, but as a set of feelings to be understood. The [00:10:15] distortions and inaccuracies are real. You do not have to pretend otherwise [00:10:20] forever, but they're not what this conversation is about right now.

[00:10:24] Stephanie Winn: This [00:10:25] conversation is about whether she can learn to associate opening up to you with [00:10:30] something that feels safe. That is the only thing you are building right now, and it is [00:10:35] not nothing. It is everything. If the conversation takes a turn, you are not prepared to [00:10:40] navigate. Or if she says something that you know needs a response, but you do not yet [00:10:45] know what the response could be, you have permission to buy time.

[00:10:48] Stephanie Winn: You can say, [00:10:50] I'm really glad we're talking. I'm learning so much about how you see this. [00:10:55] I need a little time to sit with what you've shared before I respond. That is not avoidance, that is [00:11:00] maturity. It models exactly the kind of thoughtfulness you would like her to develop, and it [00:11:05] gives you the space to process what happened, bring it to a session with me and come back to it [00:11:10] more prepared.

[00:11:10] Stephanie Winn: What you are working toward over many such conversations is a pattern in [00:11:15] your child's nervous system. I opened up to my parent, something OK [00:11:20] happened. I could do that again. You are not trying to win a single conversation. You [00:11:25] are trying to change the long-term relationship between your child and the experience of [00:11:30] vulnerability with you.

[00:11:30] Stephanie Winn: That is a project that takes time, but it starts with knowing what to [00:11:35] do and what not to do in the 30 seconds after she says yes. This [00:11:40] article that I've just read you is inspired by my coaching work and it's part of a much larger [00:11:45] curriculum where it originally appears on ROGD repair. The full lesson [00:11:50] includes reflection questions to help you personalize the material.

[00:11:53] Stephanie Winn: Just like the [00:11:55] 120 plus other lessons in my comprehensive program for parents of [00:12:00] trans-identified youth who wanna work smarter, not harder to help their children naturally desist. [00:12:05] If you are a parent navigating this, start getting equipped with the tools you need today. [00:12:10] You don't need to lose sleep.

[00:12:11] Stephanie Winn: Going down dozens of different research rabbit holes, enroll in a [00:12:15] single program that guides you through a comprehensive, systematic approach. Learn to work with [00:12:20] not against your child's psychological makeup. To help the part of them that wants to [00:12:25] make healthier choices. Use code some therapist 2026 to take [00:12:30] half off your first month of ROGD repair@ogdrepair.com.[00:12:35]

[00:12:35] Stephanie Winn: Okay folks, so this was an experiment. Normally on my podcast. As you know, I [00:12:40] do long form interviews, which means I'm creating a lot of different kinds of content and a lot of [00:12:45] different places. So I do interviews for you must be some kind of therapist [00:12:50] podcast, which is on YouTube. On all podcast listening [00:12:55] platforms and also goes out on Substack.

[00:12:58] Stephanie Winn: And then I also have articles [00:13:00] on my substack and those articles are connected oftentimes to [00:13:05] ROGD repair lessons. So this week I didn't have an interview scheduled. I [00:13:10] wanted to use a material I already had and help it reach more people. So for [00:13:15] context, this article was originally an article within ROGD Repair, but it was one that did [00:13:20] not come with a video.

[00:13:21] Stephanie Winn: Whereas most ROGD repair lessons [00:13:25] contain a video, just my face. You can just listen to it and an article. And the [00:13:30] article sometimes just recaps what's in the video. Sometimes there's extra stuff in the article that I added after [00:13:35] the fact. Um, and then of course there's the reflection questions to help you personalize the [00:13:40] material, which is really how you make the most outta the program.

[00:13:43] Stephanie Winn: Help make it most like coaching because [00:13:45] rather than just learning about abstract concepts that might apply to someone else's kid, you're actually looking [00:13:50] at what is going to help me and my family? How would my child relate to this? [00:13:55] Does this work for our personality and our parenting style? Things like that.

[00:13:59] Stephanie Winn: [00:14:00] So this is an example of the kind of material I have in RD repair. Most [00:14:05] of it's paywall 'cause this is how I make my living, helping parents like perhaps you, [00:14:10] uh, the listener. So if you need more content like this and if you want to [00:14:15] really be able to personalize and apply these tools to your life, go to rrg d repair.com [00:14:20] for more of this kind of stuff.

[00:14:21] Stephanie Winn: But I also thought I'd just give you a taste on [00:14:25] my podcast and sort of, uh. Cross pollinate all these [00:14:30] different places where I am creating content. 'cause it's a lot to keep up with. You know, I have a full schedule [00:14:35] of coaching on top of all this content creation. So, um, thanks for bearing with me [00:14:40] this week while we do something a little different where I, while I read to you an essay that I've.

[00:14:44] Stephanie Winn: [00:14:45] Written for RG repair and for my substack. I hope you enjoyed this [00:14:50] and I'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to you Must Be Some Kind of [00:14:55] Therapist. If you enjoyed this episode. Kindly take a moment to rate, [00:15:00] review, share or comment on it using your platform of choice. And [00:15:05] of course, please remember, podcasts are not therapy and I'm not your therapist.[00:15:10]

[00:15:10] Stephanie Winn: Special thanks to Joey Rero for this awesome theme song, half [00:15:15] Awake and to Pods by Nick for production. For help navigating the [00:15:20] impact of the gender craze on your family, be sure to check out my program for [00:15:25] parents, ROGD, repair. Any resource [00:15:30] you heard mentioned on this show plus how to get in touch with me, can all be found in the notes and [00:15:35] links below Rain or shine.

[00:15:38] Stephanie Winn: I hope you'll step outside to breathe. [00:15:40] The air today in the words of Max Airman, with all its [00:15:45] sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful [00:15:50] [00:15:55] [00:16:00] [00:16:05] [00:16:10] [00:16:15] [00:16:20] [00:16:25] world.