the off switch to dysphoria

[Frank]

I saw a post on here about turning dysphoria off, or rather, that there isn't really that option. I thought, what if there was really an option to do that though? Like. What if you could take a pill or get your brain zapped or literally just hit an off switch in your brain, and it would be all gone? You could just...be happy the way you were born. I mean, I know we've had posts like this before but...it's particularly mind blowing tonight.

I think about it a lot. "Yeah, ok I'll be/do x but I'm not going to do it unless I'm doing it as a man." and then realize...damn, I really am stuck this way. If that makes any sense. Like, if such a thing existed, I really don't think I'd do it. I am a man. I'm doing it as a man. I guess that's really what makes us, us.

I have a boyfriend. Well, kind of. It's complicated, shall we say. We're really really close. I truly can only think of us as boyfriend/boyfriend. It's the only way I could be with him. He makes me want to be stronger, more in shape. Not like a girl, but like a man. Big. Strong. I am beast, I am handsome, I will protect this boy of mine.

Yeah I'm just rambling, ignore me. I'm sorry.

[Jessica Merriman]

If there was such a pill I would never take it! I love my life and where it is heading and no way would I take a pill and assimilate. I love being me and all the unique attributes I have. A "cure" pill would make me just like everyone else. Yuck! 

[Taka]

i don't think dysphoria can be switched off by anything other than getting rid of the cause. it seems possible to lessen it though, but maybe that's not something everyone would be able to. might depend a whole lot on the person.

if there was a pill... it would be like killing a whole part of me.
i've already experienced what it's like to have certain emotional registers switched off. it's a horrible feeling, like something important is missing.
i wouldn't take the pill, i'd rather go the long and hard route as not yet transitioning non-binary.

[Damara]

If I could take a pill that would transform me, physically, to the woman I am, I would in a heartbeat! But just to take away my dysphoria... I don't think so because my identity is "in" my dysphoria.. if that makes sense. I don't want to be male minded, and content in my male body. Am I making sense? I almost feel like I should want to align with the body I have, because dysphoria sucks so much, but I wouldn't be me if I wasn't in this life the way I am.

[Jera]

If I could somehow flip a switch and be the person I wanted to be, I would absolutely hit that switch in less than a second. I'm pretty sure anyone here would.

But to take a pill that somehow makes you now accept the assignment you were given at birth? That's way more difficult.

I think I would. Ultimately, I just want to be happy with who I am. I don't really care who that is, but yes, if I could be happy with the person I present as, I would absolutely welcome being happy with him.

Though the reasons for that are way more complicated than I can go into in any one post.

[ImagineKate]

The "off switch" for me is transition. Nothing less.

[Jill F]

I wouldn't really be me anymore if I did that, and I think I turned out to be pretty awesome once my brain got the right fuel to run on.

Me? A regular dudebro? Uh, pass.  I'm a girl and that's the way it shall always be.

[suzifrommd]

I love being trans. Trans people can experience feelings that cis people can't even dream of. I don't like having to transition to have the body and the life I should have, but I'll gladly take the bad with the good.

[Marcia]

At times I think yeh such a pill would be nice. At other times no I wouldn't want such a pill.

The problem I see with a pill like this is that it is only treating a symptom not the cause. To me the dysphoria I feel is not the cause of me being trans* but just one way I can tell I am trans*. So at the end of the day I still would be me in a body the doesn't match. 

[makipu]

Even though I hate everything about the fact that I am misaligned, I wouldn't take the pill because I wouldn't be genuine to myself.
By the way, this pill reminds me of hypnosis.  Would hypnosis work to get rid of gender dysphoria?

[Jera]

Even though I hate everything about the fact that I am misaligned, I wouldn't take the pill because I wouldn't be genuine to myself.
By the way, this pill reminds me of hypnosis.  Would hypnosis work to get rid of gender dysphoria?

It doesn't. People who have been hypnotized have sometimes been okay on a very short-term, and not even that for all of them. But the feeling of something being very wrong, usually seen as depression, always comes back, even if they can no longer express or even understand why. Some of them turned out worse for the trouble.

So this question of a "pill" really is an entirely hypothetical one, at least that's how I deal with it. It's a magical solution. So unless Dumbledore makes it for me...

I just want to be whole, one way or another.

[Nicodeme]

I often find the red pill/blue pill kind of question annoying (I know the COGIATI has such a question; I guess that's not as much of an issue for me since I'm FAAB) because it's pretty obvious which is the "right" one.

But I don't want to go into the knife and needle matrix. My body is still tolerable and useful, and I don't often feel intense bodily dysphoria so much as frustration and disappointment on the social level. (Popular notions of androgyny, being lumped in with women, etc.) It makes more sense to me to take the pill that shuts off the dysphoria. I dunno. I don't often hear people having the same answer as me.

[Foxglove]

If I could take a pill that would transform me, physically, to the woman I am, I would in a heartbeat! But just to take away my dysphoria... I don't think so because my identity is "in" my dysphoria.. if that makes sense. I don't want to be male minded, and content in my male body. Am I making sense? I almost feel like I should want to align with the body I have, because dysphoria sucks so much, but I wouldn't be me if I wasn't in this life the way I am.

Yes, I think this makes a lot of sense.

This question comes up fairly often among us transpeople, and I find it a curious one: we want a magic pill to cure our dysphoria, and the underlying premise seems to be that that pill would make us content with our birth sex.  It's almost as if we're agreeing with the view that cisgender people have of us--that is, at the end of the day we still see the definition of ourselves as primarily physical.  At bottom, the "true us" is our birth sex.  We're still trying to reconcile ourselves to our birth sex.

No, I wouldn't want a pill that would make me content to be physically male.  The real me is my soul, which is female.  If I were going to be taking any magic pills, it would be one that would correct this awful mistake which is my body.

[Brenda E]

I don't think so because my identity is "in" my dysphoria.. if that makes sense. I don't want to be male minded, and content in my male body. Am I making sense? I almost feel like I should want to align with the body I have, because dysphoria sucks so much, but I wouldn't be me if I wasn't in this life the way I am.

What an interesting take on the topic.  At first, I thought that I'd have taken the dysphoria-curing pill - I mean, who wouldn't? - but on second thought, that would mean I'd forever give up the option of becoming female.  (People who are wholeheartedly content to be male hardly transition to female on a whim, right?)

But I wouldn't be me either, this sometimes happy, sometimes miserable, sometimes weird, smart and stupid and ugly and pretty and suicidal and wanting to live forever beautiful mess of human that I've become during this journey.  Nor would I have met so many people so different and unique, yet with so much in common.

Would swapping all of that for a regular guy life with a house, lawn, car, happy wife, middle-management career, cook-outs and football games like the other guys, and a stable and predictable retirement have been easier?  Absolutely.  But easy isn't even on my radar anymore.

[EllieM]

I saw a post on here about turning dysphoria off, or rather, that there isn't really that option. I thought, what if there was really an option to do that though? Like.
What if you could take a pill or get your brain zapped or literally just hit an off switch in your brain, and it would be all gone? You could just...be happy the way you were born. I mean, I know we've had posts like this before but...it's particularly mind blowing tonight.

well...
there is such a pill.
At least it works for me, looks like this:

[Allyda]

!!!Trigger Warning!!!

I in no way would ever take a pill that would change my core Identity and who I am. The idea of it IMHO, is reminiscent of brainwashing and that is the last thing I or our community needs.

Now if I could take a pill that would have me develop complete female genitalia and internal parts allowing what's there to just scab up and fall off, show me the way I'd take it in a heartbeat. But this is different. I in no way would ever take any pill that would alter my brain chemistry and my core Identity brainwashing me into something I was never meant to be.

Though as you can see I'm a lil passionate about this subject, this is only just my $.02 IMHO and not meant to offend anyone.

Ally

[Taka]

ally, you mean your brain structure/wiring, right?
because the chemistry is just the hormones, and i think most of us quite desperately want to alter that...

i completely agree on wanting a pill that would make my body reflect my internal self.

[Allyda]

ally, you mean your brain structure/wiring, right?
because the chemistry is just the hormones, and i think most of us quite desperately want to alter that...

^^___^^Yes!

i completely agree on wanting a pill that would make my body reflect my internal self.

It^^___^^ certainly would be nice wouldn't it? lol!

Ally

[ElDudette]

20yrs living as a golem, with the dysphoria being this odd static noise i didn't understand during that time.  Even with it turning into a discordant and malevolent lullaby since I snapped most of the puzzel pieces together..


well, to quote James T. Kirk

" Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain! "


Now if there had been a pill that had let me go full catapillar to butterfly, binge eat, sleep for three days, wake up in the right body... Hell yeah I would... #$@# i♂ would have done that years ago during one of the many nights of wishing i♂ had been born female like my two sisters..

[Christine Eryn]

If such a pill existed, I would have taken it when I was 4 years old. Or microwaved my head or whatever would end this nightmare. Some people have said they are ok with who they are and the whole process and whatnot, that's not me though. I've had a rough road behind me and a rough one ahead.  I could have done without the pain and the pills and the (upcoming) surgeries.