Quote from: Janes Groove on May 21, 2018, 11:40:12 AM
Definition of gender dysphoria:
"The specific character of despair is precisely this: it is unaware of being despair."
― Søren Kierkegaard
That's kind of the thing. When someone asks me if something is dysphoria, I tend to equate it to whether something is the opposite of euphoria. And I'm not 100% sure, in this case, it is. But I also don't think it necessarily has to be.
You don't have to be utterly miserable in your own skin to desire to change it. Feeling nothing towards how the world perceives you to be is just as potent as feeling abject misery. It depends on how people have conditioned themselves to cope with life. Throughout my time here I've seen no end of people say they felt no unhappiness with how they looked. That, when they look in a mirror, they see someone who, under any other circumstances, they would consider quite attractive and the reason they wanted to become themselves was because they just didn't feel "right" in their own skin, you know?
That's the main thing, for me. It's not so much to do with whether anyone goes through life without realising who they are because other things got in the way, or because the realisation was so emotionally overloading that they just became numb to it all, or because they detested the way they were from the time they were able to form thoughts. We all arrive at the same place. More to do with the deep-seated desire for change, until we end up at the place where we are able to embrace ourselves.
That is what matters. Where you end up. Not so much where you came from.
I can very much relate to having zero interest in your body, though. I spent a good deal of my life feeling that way. And sometimes still do. Is it dyphoria? I don't know. Is it not feeling right in your own skin? Absolutely.