Body dysmorphic after ffs

[lovelessheart]

Hi all

I have recently had ffs with Dr. Z on june 24.
My surgery was amazing- as well as my experience.
However, something i was not prepared at all for was this dysmorphic issue.
Lately i have been down. Not because of how i look (because i look amazing)
but because my mind still expects to see the old me (which looks  different)
Im still processing and still hold the insecurities that i did before surgery.
When i go out, my mind is lagging and picture me the same as i did before surgery.
I hope im making sense. For example: An obese person may loose weight and become skinny. Even though there is an obvious difference in appearance, they still have a mind of them being fat.
All of this is so very new to me. Its like my new image isnt yet processed in my head . I have to relearn my look over. THis is just a reminder that SURGERY fixes nothing internally. Gender dysphoria is something that will ALWAYS be an issue. It may become a little better to deal with in life, but it will always be there. I wasn't prepared for this part here. However, i know it will get better with time. Hopefully this post will help a future ffs patient out.
Did any post ffs girls experience this as well?

[Sarah.VanDistel]

Hi Loveless Heart!

I didn't experience that simply because I still haven't done my FFS (hopefully around February or March 2018), but I found very interesting reading your experience. I sometimes ask myself that very question... I mean... There is suddenly such a huge physical change... How is the mindset supposed to follow? It's not that I don't already feel a woman, because I definitely do. But for the last decades I've been feeling a woman inside a man's body. I suppose that it's not something that you simply turn off like a switch. I suspect it will take some time to get adapted... Also, I don't know about you, but for me I feel that FFS will be crucial for passability and if it turns out to be succesful in that regard, I imagine I will be feeling much less dysphoric, much less preoccupied with being the target of other's looks. So, not sure if what you're feeling is really dysmorphia... I feel it's more akin to phantom limb pain... No? [emoji848]

Again, thanks for your post! I find it delightful when people post stuff that makes me reflect... ☺

Hugs, Sarah

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

[anjaq]

So how do you describe it? Is it really like your mind expects the face as before and womders a bit why it is gone?

When I had my voice surgery, it was a bit odd, too. But that was because of various issues - one was that the change was not all instant - it took some weeks to establish, my voice essentially was the same, just subtely changed and a bit higher in pitch, so some people did not even know the difference. I became insecure about the success of the whole thing. In addition to that, having used a higher pitched voice half my life deliberately and with straining my voice, my mind kept trying to lower my pitch again because after such a long time, it had learned that this is what causes less strin, so it had to re-learn that the opposite is true now and using lowpitch causes strain.
So sometimes the mind doe snot keep up with it very fast - for me the voice thing took about 2 years to be mostly gone, although after 15 months it was already significantly improved

[Sophia Sage]

I have recently had ffs with Dr. Z on june 24. My surgery was amazing- as well as my experience.

However, something i was not prepared at all for was this dysmorphic issue. Lately i have been down. Not because of how i look (because i look amazing) but because my mind still expects to see the old me (which looks  different)
Im still processing and still hold the insecurities that i did before surgery. When i go out, my mind is lagging and picture me the same as i did before surgery.

I hope im making sense. For example: An obese person may loose weight and become skinny. Even though there is an obvious difference in appearance, they still have a mind of them being fat. All of this is so very new to me. Its like my new image isnt yet processed in my head . I have to relearn my look over.

I had this very same experience! 

I had facial surgery nearly two decades ago, with Meltzer back when he was still in Portland.  And it's true, I couldn't "see" the results that everyone else was seeing after the surgery.  Memories can be so strong and powerful that they can override our immediate senses. 

While all of my friends said that I looked amazing, I was still seeing vestiges of the old face.  Only through my sense of touch could I really believe that everything had changed.  Well, that... and some work.  I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror.  I had to retrain my facial muscles -- so that the smile I thought I was making was actually the smile that I was actually the smile I was producing.  The same for pouts, frowns, quizzical looks, whatever.  Mostly, I had to dial everything down.

Eventually, those memories changed. 

THis is just a reminder that SURGERY fixes nothing internally. Gender dysphoria is something that will ALWAYS be an issue. It may become a little better to deal with in life, but it will always be there. I wasn't prepared for this part here. However, i know it will get better with time.

You're not even two months out from surgery.  It was only at the 3-month mark that my internal image finally started to change, and that itself was a process that took another couple of months to really settle in.

But I tell you, it's possible to eradicate the dysphoria completely. For not only did I do that work in front of the mirror, I also paid attention to the mirror of other people.  I let their experience of me sink in, too.  I let go of every urge to "correct" them -- which means I practiced non-disclosure.  It took a good couple years of living stealth after all my surgeries were complete (over two years after SRS, and 3 years after facial surgery) but it happened.  It took several years of being properly gendered from all areas in my life, but it actually happened!

So don't give up hope.  Just realize that the journey isn't over.  All the surgeries and stuff, that's the work of transition.  And when that's all said and done, there's then the work of "transsexing" -- of letting the world see you for who you really are.  When you get to the point where the world stops clocking you, you can get to the point where you stop clocking yourself.

[HappyMoni]

Hi all

I have recently had ffs with Dr. Z on june 24.
My surgery was amazing- as well as my experience.
However, something i was not prepared at all for was this dysmorphic issue.
Lately i have been down. Not because of how i look (because i look amazing)
but because my mind still expects to see the old me (which looks  different)
Im still processing and still hold the insecurities that i did before surgery.
When i go out, my mind is lagging and picture me the same as i did before surgery.
I hope im making sense. For example: An obese person may loose weight and become skinny. Even though there is an obvious difference in appearance, they still have a mind of them being fat.
All of this is so very new to me. Its like my new image isnt yet processed in my head . I have to relearn my look over. THis is just a reminder that SURGERY fixes nothing internally. Gender dysphoria is something that will ALWAYS be an issue. It may become a little better to deal with in life, but it will always be there. I wasn't prepared for this part here. However, i know it will get better with time. Hopefully this post will help a future ffs patient out.
Did any post ffs girls experience this as well?

I will tell you what is worse, when the surgery goes poorly, and your face is left in a state where it is obviously not right. A year after my FFS, I felt I spent a lot of money and was robbed of any 'yea' moment. I am moving on now and trying to fix it, so I am trying to be done fussing about it. It strikes me that you need to give yourself more adjustment time. Your conclusion that surgery fixes nothing inside you is a little premature in my opinion. I think Sophia's transsexing idea happens and is a result of many things. Surgery is only a part. Gender dysphoria may stick around a long time, but it is not all powerful. I have eliminated a lot of it with social transition, HRT, GCS, all have chipped away at it. I think keeping positive and keeping and open mind are the best things you can do for what you are experiencing.
Moni

[lovelessheart]

Hi Loveless Heart!

I didn't experience that simply because I still haven't done my FFS (hopefully around February or March 2018), but I found very interesting reading your experience. I sometimes ask myself that very question... I mean... There is suddenly such a huge physical change... How is the mindset supposed to follow? It's not that I don't already feel a woman, because I definitely do. But for the last decades I've been feeling a woman inside a man's body. I suppose that it's not something that you simply turn off like a switch. I suspect it will take some time to get adapted... Also, I don't know about you, but for me I feel that FFS will be crucial for passability and if it turns out to be succesful in that regard, I imagine I will be feeling much less dysphoric, much less preoccupied with being the target of other's looks. So, not sure if what you're feeling is really dysmorphia... I feel it's more akin to phantom limb pain... No? [emoji848]

Again, thanks for your post! I find it delightful when people post stuff that makes me reflect... ☺

Hugs, Sarah

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

Well I know i look different. I know there's a great deal of change when I look in the mirror... But only when I look in the mirror in reminded Ohhhhwow.. I look different. So my mind hasn't caught up. So I'm not sure lol. 

As far as the disphoria goes, I believe that it can only get better..not completely go away .

[lovelessheart]

So how do you describe it? Is it really like your mind expects the face as before and womders a bit why it is gone?

When I had my voice surgery, it was a bit odd, too. But that was because of various issues - one was that the change was not all instant - it took some weeks to establish, my voice essentially was the same, just subtely changed and a bit higher in pitch, so some people did not even know the difference. I became insecure about the success of the whole thing. In addition to that, having used a higher pitched voice half my life deliberately and with straining my voice, my mind kept trying to lower my pitch again because after such a long time, it had learned that this is what causes less strin, so it had to re-learn that the opposite is true now and using lowpitch causes strain.
So sometimes the mind doe snot keep up with it very fast - for me the voice thing took about 2 years to be mostly gone, although after 15 months it was already significantly improved

You're right. It's like my mind still expects my old face... I have a new face..so it's kind of like looking at someone else.

[lovelessheart]

I had this very same experience! 

I had facial surgery nearly two decades ago, with Meltzer back when he was still in Portland.  And it's true, I couldn't "see" the results that everyone else was seeing after the surgery.  Memories can be so strong and powerful that they can override our immediate senses. 

While all of my friends said that I looked amazing, I was still seeing vestiges of the old face.  Only through my sense of touch could I really believe that everything had changed.  Well, that... and some work.  I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror.  I had to retrain my facial muscles -- so that the smile I thought I was making was actually the smile that I was actually the smile I was producing.  The same for pouts, frowns, quizzical looks, whatever.  Mostly, I had to dial everything down.

Eventually, those memories changed. 

You're not even two months out from surgery.  It was only at the 3-month mark that my internal image finally started to change, and that itself was a process that took another couple of months to really settle in.

But I tell you, it's possible to eradicate the dysphoria completely. For not only did I do that work in front of the mirror, I also paid attention to the mirror of other people.  I let their experience of me sink in, too.  I let go of every urge to "correct" them -- which means I practiced non-disclosure.  It took a good couple years of living stealth after all my surgeries were complete (over two years after SRS, and 3 years after facial surgery) but it happened.  It took several years of being properly gendered from all areas in my life, but it actually happened!

So don't give up hope.  Just realize that the journey isn't over.  All the surgeries and stuff, that's the work of transition.  And when that's all said and done, there's then the work of "transsexing" -- of letting the world see you for who you really are.  When you get to the point where the world stops clocking you, you can get to the point where you stop clocking yourself.

Omg thank you so much ... I really needed this !!!! 💓💓💓