What Does Dysphoria Feel Like?

[noah732]

 What is dysphoria? Can I be trans even though I don't have dysphoria?

I read something recently about someone trans who described being transgender as "getting that weird feeling in your stomach every time you use the restroom/ change clothes/ see your genitalia or secondary sex characteristics.

I identify as trans but I've personally never gotten a "weird feeling in my stomach" when seeing my genitalia. I feel male and the idea of transitioning sounds relieving to me, but what does it mean when I don't feel strange about my body? Am I still trans?


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[suzifrommd]

I've never been uncomfortable with my body, and only started to experience dysphoria when I started moving toward transition. I've been happily living as a woman for more than two years, so I can say that neither dysphoria or discomfort with body is a requirement for being trans.

[Nicodeme]

It's not always a weird gut feel. I've heard of head buzzing, dissociation (those I've experienced), inadequacy, overcompensation...it's individual.

Dysphoria doesn't have to be constant, either.

[Clever]

For me, it's more of a generalized sadness every time I see my face or the feminine aspects of my body. A feeling of not being quite right, a feeling of "wearing" my body rather than having it seamlessly integrated with the "me" in my head.

Mostly it's been a lifetime of low-grade self-hatred and constant mirror-avoidance.

More than anything visual, though, it's been my voice that's caused me the worst dysphoria...to the point that I would refuse to talk on the phone to people. It's like having someone else's voice coming out of my mouth--a totally bizarre experience.

[SimplyThea]

For me it just feels like a terrible depressing feeling when I see myself in the mirror or get caught up in my masculine features because I mostly just want them gone. For me though it doesn't extend to my genitalia. I don't know that I will end up getting SRS unless I start to experience negative feelings toward my genitals because surgery is always a risk and I don't want to get more surgeries than I really need to. But I get really depressed when it comes to things like my body hair and my male clothes and the fact that I'm balding and can't grow my hair out because of that. Really all dysphoria is is the feeling of there being a disconnect between your body and the gender you feel you are mentally and that can manifest in many different ways.

[Swayallday]

Like someone takes you by the shoulders and starts rocking you back and forth really, really fast/hard all the whilst having mental images of boy/girl boy/girl boy/girl

Tiresome.

[RaptorChops]

Anxiety, Depression.. Jealousy of males.
My lower half is the worst part. I have never "explored" internally and I don't ever plan on it. I have never had a girlfriend stick around with me because they never understood my genital dysphoria. I would rather get some vaginal disease that kills me than to ever see a Gyno (yes a million times I have heard to get a pap smear). I have never had intercourse either and I don't plan on it ever.  So if I ever do decide to have bottom surgery they better plan on giving me my gyno exam while I am under anesthesia for the surgery.

[Dena]

I am going to be a bit more bookish but it still applies to me. It is the sense that something is wrong with the world as it fails to match your mind. Body dysphoria is something I am learning about because I never saw it before. With me it was primarily the life I was living was all wrong. I wanted to look the part of a woman and have people accept me as such. It wasn't any one thing, it was everything. All the little day to day details from getting up in the morning to shave, having to go in the mens restroom, not being a part of the woman's crowd to being addressed as sir or by my male name.

Before surgery while I was still in the cross living period was when I noticed something strange and even without surgery, that uncomfortable feeling was gone.

[smdh]

I've never been uncomfortable with my body, and only started to experience dysphoria when I started moving toward transition. I've been happily living as a woman for more than two years, so I can say that neither dysphoria or discomfort with body is a requirement for being trans.

Thanks for posting this. I find it really interesting how getting closer to what you want to become sometimes doesn't ease the desire, like you'd think, but heighten it-- 

I'm similar in that I've never HATED my body/genitals, but have decided to transition for other reasons. Yet when I was DIYing (started/stopped twice), I oscillated between Oh, I don't need to transition anymore; I feel fine now! and Now that in my mind, I'm on the same playing field as GGs, I am so far behind and I look and feel awful. I mean, I know this is really bad logic, but nothing about any of this seems logical

[Serenation]

guess i'll be the odd one out, I had major dysphoria, cringed whenever I seen myself naked. Being referred to in anyway male felt like being knifed. Sex made me cry it just felt so wrong. *shudders*

[Tamika Olivia]

It's like seeing a stranger in the mirror for me. I never could quite associate the person in the mirror with the concept of "me". I was always surprised when the external image failed to match the internal one. It wasn't always agonizing... sometimes it was just jarring. What's worse, until recently I never knew why. Now I get it. The person in the mirror is a guy, I'm not. I... avoid mirrors now, because that feeling of unreality is much stronger when I'm aware of what's happening.

[genevie]

It feels like a constant pain in your gut. It feels like a vice around your head. It feels like a lead blanket weighing you down and sometimes suffocating. You feel like crying. You feel like there's no hope. You realize why some people commit suicide. Then other times it's just a pressure in your head. Or it's almost not there at all and you wonder if that feeling was real. But then it comes back.

[enigmaticrorschach]

if you asked me last year, I'd tell you I had it so bad, j was an inch from cutting that thing off. I have cut down there before. I hated the sight of the boy bits. it even got to the point my dysphoria crippled me and I nearly was killed by oncoming traffic because I had a sudden spontaneous bugling. now, it's like I don't have an issues but I would very much like them gone. if someone told me i 'd have to live as a male and not get srs, I'd literally throw myself into oncoming traffic

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[iKate]

Genital dysphoria is not universal. I had some of it but it wasn't that intense.

What was intense was seeing women being themselves, socially. It would make my stomach turn and i would feel depressed.

[EllieM]

I have had an experience very similar to the one expressed by iKate, however, I do have discomfort, anxiety, whenever I see myself from the waist down. The intensity of the dysphoria decreased after starting HRT, but then, so did the apparent "size" of my "problem"

At work, I am constantly reminded of my corporal inadequacies... all of those young ladies, 17-25 floating around campus, looking like the body image that was denied me by fate. That too, thankfully, seems to have been assuaged somewhat by the correction in my hormone balance.

[Nicole]

For me it wasn't a body part, lack of boobs but body hair.

I HATED IT! I wanted it gone, I wanted a female pattened body hair.
There were a few other things, but I could have coped, but when it came to body hair I felt sick.

There were times I would shave my legs, get out of the bath, get goose bumps, feel my legs and shave again.

[Evolving Beauty]

You just feel like exploding inside cos you can't be/live how you really want to.

[katrinaw]

Bad Dysphoria from around 5 to early'ish teens on a certain body part, that sort of eased off... I managed the Dysphoria!
But the main thing all these years was as Nicole said... I really hated male body hair and arms, legs and facial... only back of upper legs to go and facial.. long haul, but Yay 

Katy xx

[Mariah]

This hits it for me because in many ways not being able to do what I want and then knowing I had to hold off while another relative did really it me hard too. So definitely what she said hits the spot. Hugs
Mariah

You just feel like exploding inside cos you can't be/live how you really want to.

[Ashley Allison]

Dysphoria for me is a combination of many feelings. I will often have phantom limb sensations, most strongly in my chest; that something is supposed to be there when it isn't in reality.  In addition, my mind will make a snap judgement that I should be on the opposite of some gender specific situations: e.g. someone will call me 'young man' and my mind will immediately think it is foreign and then my mind will go through a couple moments begging where if someone would  call 'young woman' it would seem completely natural.  There is also a generalized anxiety component to it, where I don't feel that 'this' (male life) is right.  Finally, a general feeling of wanting is present where I just want to feel all the social perspectives, physical, and emotional sensations that a normal girl feels on an average day.