Is this Gender Dysphoria?

[Asche]

I was reading a thread about Gender Dysphoria in a Transsexual forum at another site, and I got this funny feeling that I seem to always get when people write about Gender Dysphoria: that this is what I've been feeling for as long as I can remember feeling anything.

* Feeling uncomfortable with what I'm expected to do/be as a boy/man?  Check.
* Feeling like I'm a failure as a boy/man?  Check.
* Feeling like there's something shamefully wrong with me?  Check.  (Maybe because people have been telling me at least since I was 10 that there's something wrong with me.)
* Being fascinated by "girl stuff", including wanting to wear girls'/women's clothes?  Check.
* Suicidal?  Semi-check: I've had "suicidal ideation" as far back as I have coherent memories, but never actually tried anything.

On the other hand:

* Hating my body?  Not really.  (Only bothered by it since I put on weight.)
* Fantasizing about being a girl?  Not really, at least not until very, very recently.  If anything, I had a fear of becoming  a girl.  Not that I seriously believed it was possible, but just thinking about the idea made me really anxious.
* Feeling like I'm really female ("woman trapped in a man's body")?  No.

So I go back and forth.  One day I'll think: this is what I've been feeling, I was just in denial.  The next day I think: you're just trying to fit your general feeling of depression and worthlessness into a nice neat narrative.

I used to tell myself to just snap out of it, but I'm too old for that now.  At some point, you don't have the energy to fight any more.  But there are days when I hate myself so much I just want to crawl under the bed and stay there until it's all over.  (Whatever "it" is.)

[FalseHybridPrincess]

Hhhhm those 3 things that dont apply to you seem to be what most trans people feel...

Hey everyone is different I dont know, but imo this doesnt seems like gender dysphoria
or it is but you have yet to understand,,,or it is and im just wrong .

yeap that was helpful of me , I know...

[musicofthenight]

As you've experienced, gender dysphoria without body dysphoria is very much a thing.  I'm familiar with it myself.

You have some anxiety and stuff going on which would be really helpful to talk through.

And, yeah, you can safely ignore what Princess said.  Her experience just hasn't been the same as yours.

So I go back and forth.  One day I'll think: this is what I've been feeling, I was just in denial.  The next day I think: you're just trying to fit your general feeling of depression and worthlessness into a nice neat narrative.

I used to tell myself to just snap out of it, but I'm too old for that now.  At some point, you don't have the energy to fight any more.  But there are days when I hate myself so much I just want to crawl under the bed and stay there until it's all over.  (Whatever "it" is.)

So I'd like you to ask what "just in denial" and especially what "just trying to craft a narrative" mean.  Is it really bad to have a narrative?  If, for example, you want to search for truth with the scientific method, you'll have to start with a hypothesis.

Or maybe knowing the truth isn't what you'll need to be happy anyway.

I don't think you should be scared of the stories you tell yourself, even if they are fiction.  There's a lot of truth even in made up things, isn't there?  But again, this is something you'll have to decide for yourself.

Maybe you can retreat to the things you know and start from there.  You don't like manly expectations?  Set your goals on being an excellent person first - knowing that it's hard and you'll have to be patient and forgiving with yourself ('cuz it sounds like you don't get even that basic kindness from others...)



So, something that I struggle with myself is a history of emotional abuse.  This kind of crap
> people have been telling me at least since I was 10 that there's something wrong with me

And you know what?  I'm angry.  And I'm ashamed.  I've found all kinds of little ways to agree with the abuse - I think I hoped it would make it stop but of course it didn't, and now years later the habits of self-defeat run deep and yes, I am angry and ashamed.  Years ago I joined in the bullying and for years I've beaten myself to nothing.

I'm sorry.  Will I forgive myself?


If you're struggling with something similar, and somehow can't manage to figure out your identity - I understand.  If you're still trying to "snap out of it" (doesn't work, does it?), I understand that too.

[Kaelin]

Social norms have a tendency to screw with you.  To wit:

* You don't like the social expectations of being male, but those expectations having little to nothing to do with what it intrinsically means to be a man.
* You like certain "girly" stuff, but whatever preconceptions people have regarding most "feminine" items are not intrinsic to them.

On the flip side:

* You're likely juggling internalized feelings about what it would mean to be a woman.  These may possibly involve your current sexuality (even if simply periodic masturbation), or it may involve certain female stereotypes/preconceptions (whether you feel you'd be embodying some of them, or if other people would expect you to embody them), or you simply do not possess an unmitigated aversion to being male.  You're not the classic transsexual, so you figure that may not be a transwoman (but the bar for being a woman isn't that high).

What you might have some success with is taking on "girl stuff" but allowing yourself to do whatever comes naturally.  A dress with boyish hair (assuming that's preferable to you) presenting whatever demeanor and interests comes naturally could do you some good, especially if you can find some people to spend time when doing so.  It may reduce certain anxieties and allow you to listen to yourself more closely -- and hopefully you can get a better sense of what you still need and where you identity truly rests.

You don't sound like you're anywhere close to being totally manly or totally girly, and even if you have certain characteristics that approaching each extreme, I think it's okay to embrace it as a total package.  Lots of people may not get it, but sort of the cliche around these boards is that the people who get upset are people you shouldn't be trying to "impress" in the first place.  It sounds like your current crop of people is making that difficult, so while it may be hard to just drop them full stop, you need to find new people and limit your interaction with the problematic people you're around.

You may have gender dysphoria, but I don't think that means your gender is wrong.  It just means things aren't settled yet, whether it means you're a woman, a man, or someone else, and the resolution can involve any number of factors (hormones, philosophical changes, personal discoveries, whatever).

[Pica Pica]

Is this Gender Dysphoria?

I think in some ways, that is your choice. It certainly is some feeling of awkwardness, maybe even that whatever you are is inappropriate in some way. I think it is in your power to steer how these feelings develop.

So I go back and forth.  One day I'll think: this is what I've been feeling, I was just in denial.  The next day I think: you're just trying to fit your general feeling of depression and worthlessness into a nice neat narrative.

I felt like this for a very long time and concluded that it was a bit of both.

Certainly where I was at the time, as a very unimpressive university graduate with no real idea of what to do in the future or any hope that it would hold anything but scrabbling for other people's scraps, I felt depressed and worthless. As time developed and it became very clear that I was going to spend the next however long scrabbling for other people's scraps (7 years and counting) I began to re-accept myself. I did it the following ways (here's hoping some may apply).

Deciding what I stand for and trying to stand for it

I realised that scrabbling for scraps would be fine if it wasn't against something I stood for. I chanced upon a phrase, 'passionate intelligence', this phrase came from a book of the same title. The book is about Samuel Johnson and the author paints a picture of his moral writing that points to this notion - passionate intelligence is a way of combining the power and 'oomph' of passion/emotion (but trying to limit it's selfish egocentricity) to the wider, more open view of intelligence/rationality (but trying to limit its coldness). This phrase gave me one aim, a star to sail my ship by.

The other is a phrase I read in an article about history. 'The past and present are utterly intertwined and life like history should be a noble project.' This is especially important when you unpack the word 'noble'. It means 'having or displaying high moral qualities or lofty ideals: of a great character, honourable, admirable, free from pettiness and meanness, magnanimous.'

Of course these are very high ideals for a toe-rag like myself but to have ideals was a big part of the battle.


Deciding what I could do well and doing them

I can write fiction pretty well. I am a clear oral communicator and I can get on with most people. I am also pretty playful at times at pretty serious and bookish at others. So I made sure I always had some writing on the go, sought jobs that let me talk and had a social element and let me both play and be quiet. I am an assistant at a primary school, it doesn't fulfil everything but it works pretty well.

Deciding what I enjoyed and keeping it close

I love history and live in a city with 30 free museums. I love books and surround myself with them. I see my family every week and have a drink with my friends every fortnight. I can afford a play, show or gig bi-monthly. I have my favourite tea always in stock - all of these are fairly tame pleasures and I have to plan in advance to fit them in my (barely) living wage but it means I can live a pleasant life if not a totally full one.

Letting go of what I didn't care for

I decided that I don't particularly want to impress people, that I don't need much to keep me comfortable and ticking over and that I wouldn't strive for those things I didn't particularly value.

Deciding who I was

This is where the knowledge of androgyne helped. I still am not sure how much being an androgyne is a real 'thing', when I started I was adamant is was but now I care far less one way or the other. This knowledge allowed me to take it on the chin when I wanted to be a girl without worrying. It also allowed me to explore those interests without shame, as for an androgyne, the shame would be in not exploring perspective. It allowed me to feel no shame about not being 'a proper man' as I wasn't one, I was an androgyne. In time, I have been able to explore the male parts of my personality also.

Having decided what I stood for, was good at and enjoyed helped me assemble all the other parts of myself together as well.

Re-accepting myself

This is the hard bit. Of course there are days when everything is bad and I feel like a loser but then it is time to re-affirm what I stand for, what I am good at, what I enjoy and who I am.

Sorry if this answer is a bit preachy but it's let me sum up to myself and has been a bit of a re-affirmation in itself.

* Suicidal?  Semi-check: I've had "suicidal ideation" as far back as I have coherent memories, but never actually tried anything.

I get that. I tried once but haven't really told anybody.

There is a part in my most recent finished novel, 'Death of a Dreamonger' which is a suicide note. It contains the following passage about that 'suicidal ideation'.

    Once a person has contemplated suicide once, it is an option available forever more. It lurks as a possibility in the background, a constant presence, the answer to every single problem no matter how small. How many times, having missed the bus, or forgetting my door keys or waking up to no food in the house have I decided to end it all? How many times had I rather faced death then meet up with a tiring friend or make an awkward trip? How I have wished for sweet oblivion over the prospect of undergoing the tedium of washing the dishes again, and what an utter cretin I have felt for wishing it. Truly, once suicide has entered the grand landscape of the brain it is always there. Where it is easy to take arms against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (and how camp does that ʻoutrageousʼ sound?) it can be an impossible task to cope with the constant accumulation, the dripping increase of petty disappointments, humiliations and embarrassments if one is a certain kind of person. I am a certain kind of person.

I am also a certain kind of person. I have dealt with this by making a pact. I promise that I will kill myself but only when all the novels in my head are out of it and on file/paper. This is a sneaky trick, I will die of old age before I can write all those novels down.

[VeronicaLynn]

I used to tell myself to just snap out of it, but I'm too old for that now.  At some point, you don't have the energy to fight any more.  But there are days when I hate myself so much I just want to crawl under the bed and stay there until it's all over.  (Whatever "it" is.)

Why should you hate yourself at all? Some people want you to feel bad about who you are for various religious or political reasons, you really can't let them get to you. If you find a way to accept who you are it actually becomes EASIER. Not just slightly, but a whole lot easier, once you fully accept yourself, the haters become just that, just haters, and not some authority that has any merit to try to change you from who you are.

[Asche]

    Once a person has contemplated suicide once, it is an option available forever more. ...

I am also a certain kind of person. I have dealt with this by making a pact. I promise that I will kill myself but only when all the novels in my head are out of it and on file/paper.

I tell myself I can't kill myself because my kids (age 20 and 23) need me.  (And they do -- they are nowhere near ready to manage life on their own.)

[Asche]

Why should you hate yourself at all? Some people want you to feel bad about who you are ...

If I could choose not to hate myself, I would have so chosen 50 years ago.

[Chula]

Your description of gender dysphoria pretty much equates to my own.  I've never felt male, or wished to identify with stereotypically male characteristics, and according to the preferences determined by social norms, I am clearly female.  On the other hand, I have no wish to change my body, or to attempt to 'pass' as a woman.  The label 'androgyne' allows me to accept that I am what I am, and also gives me a stock reply to questions like, 'why are you wearing nail varnish?'

As for self-hatred, those feelings are there because of the way you have been treated, not because you are intrinsically worthless.  As you say, you cannot simply 'choose' not to hate yourself, but you can shift your perspective on yourself with a clearer understanding of who you are, and with help and support from others.  I was very sceptical about therapy until I had it, but five years' worth taught me that I deserve the same love and respect as everyone else.

[Asche]

FWIW, the article about gender dysphoria that I referred to in my OP was here

Adding to my original list:

* While I don't specifically hate my body, I've always felt that male bodies were ugly, simply for being male, and female bodies were intrinsically beautiful.
* From Zinnia's list, #3 and #4:
** 3. A feeling of just going through the motions in everyday life, as if you're always reading from a script.
** 4. A seeming pointlessness to your life, and no sense of any real meaning or ultimate purpose.

#4 is hitting me pretty hard lately.  It doesn't help that I'm realizing that I have only 2-3 decades left.

There's an image/concept that I've had for most of my adult life: that life is like a trail (imagine a trail in the Alps or something), and you can go forward or you can just sit there (going back is not possible), but if you just sit there, you're essentially dead and buried, they just haven't gotten around to burying you yet.  It's like you've sealed yourself up in your coffin while you're still alive (in body, at least.)  I've used this image to terrorize myself into moving forward when the going gets nightmarish (imagine the trail going down a steep cliff -- the south side of Breakneck Ridge comes to mind.)

The only problem is, the trail seems to have petered out.  I'm on a boulder field, or maybe a meadow, a thousand feet above tree line where nothing but grass and the occasional wildflower can grow, and there's no more trail, no cairns, and no hut or sign of any place to go.  I can't even see any rocks where the lichens are scuffed up.  I'm guessing this has something to do with gender identity (broadly construed), but I have no clue as to what exactly.

[Chula]

Maybe you're just describing the existential reality of the human condition.