transgender or ocd?

[mikeffd]

Have any of you ever suffered from obsession? Since this started (4 weeks ago), I've barely had any other thought in my mind except gender. It's been constant questioning, thinking, researching, etc. My whole life is gender right now.

I went from thinking about gender as much as a cis-person, to this. I truly feel like I've lost my mind.

I sometimes wonder if my mind is co-opting the stuff I'm reading and making it my own experience. For example, I just read that someone had gender dysphoria related to their broad shoulders. Now, I feel that way!

Anyway, sorry to go off on a tangent.

[Dena]

The process of self discovery. We can go for years without suspecting anything about our self and then once we get that first clue, we question everything. In my case, I had never heard about cross dressing before but once I had the wakening, I figured it out by myself and I  couldn't get enough of it. I taught myself how to read and worked hard at it once I discovered every few months I might find something in the news paper or a magazine that would tell me more about myself. I went from never reading the paper to reading every word before it was thrown out. I think OCD is just a part of our nature when we try to satisfy our thirst for knowledge.

[becky.rw]

There are worse things, far worse things for OCD to latch onto as something to contemplate.   At least this particular line of thought is existential and worthy of your time and effort, regardless of the conclusion you might come to.

[EzraDC]

I can totally relate. I have OCD and BPD (killer combination I know!), and that causes me to have huge obsessions that suddenly disappear when I start obsessing over something else.

My search into gender identity started similarly. I remember stumbling upon a trans youtuber completely by chance and something just really... idk sparked within me? I became obsessed with trans issues, looking into every non-binary identity and was a very overly invested 'cis' ally at the time before I even started to question my gender.

My BPD makes me very suggestable so for a long time I thought my dysphoria was just because I'd been looking at trans men describing their dysphoria. After a lot of soul searching it turns out I waas truly feeling dysphoria.

I think you need to sit and think outside of all your research about you, and how you relate to your body. Think about your past. Think about what you want in the future. How do you see yourself? Maybe look into non-binary identities and see if any of that resonates with you?

Whatever you come to realise (or not), your experience is valid.

I will leave you with something I was told that helped me realise I was trans: cis people don't tend to spend so much time agonising over whether or not they're trans.