Explain gender dysphoria to me

[shepd]

I was wondering if someone could explain gender dysphoria to me.  How it feels, what it does to you?

My experience is that I've been generally depressed for decades, and that crossdressing/makeup help relieve that and put me at ease, though I'd like to go further in the future.  To me this isn't gender dysphoria, but rather, just feeling better when I do what my brain wants rather than doing what society expects.

But perhaps it is and I'm just not getting it?  I don't experience particularly bad depression related to gender issues (at least not typically), my worst depression issues come from elsewhere, such as disappointing family or feeling like a failure.

My psychiatrist did suggest that since I have ASD I'm likely not to experience gender issues the same way normal people would.  Perhaps I've been blessed with the ability to only see the upside, who knows?  At some point in the future I'll be seeing a gender therapist and I'd like to have a better idea of what is and isn't going on lest I not be taken seriously.

[JamesG]

Dysphoria is different for everyone but it isn't just depression. Usually isn't even depression. Its more "this is the way I think" and "this is the way I should look" that crashes into social expectations and conditioning that "REAL Men/Women don't think/look like that!"  The resulting cognitive dissonance is what causes the anxiety and depression, even anger and self-loathing that lead to all the negative mental health and physically dangerous behavior.

Transition is designed to knock down the things that cause gender dysphoria. It aligns a person's self-image with their social interface, their exterior appearance.

So what it "feels like" is you are doing something or thinking something, and you have to "check yourself", especially in a group setting, from saying something gender inappropriate. Or you have interests or perspective likewise.  And my favorite is when you are feeling alright, even "pretty", and then you see your reflection or a picture of yourself, and the hideous monster staring back you feels like a literal slap in the face. 

not cut and paste btw. 

[krobinson103]

Dysphoria is a complex beast that hits you in different ways when you least expect it. For me it was the feeling that my soul did not fit within the vessel I was given. Looking in the mirror and seeing... someone who wasn't me. Someone acting in a role who looked sounded and acted successful and even happy. Inside however I felt trapped. Trapped but societies expectations, trapped by family responsibilities. Trapped into a life not worth living.

Transitioning helps - a lot. But, there is always a little lurking dysphoria you need to actively suppress. The oh my <insert body part> looks terrible! or I'm too tall/heavy/etc. I can say now that I look in the mirror and LIKE what I see 99% of the time which is probably as good as its going to get.

[Alice (nym)]

It is really difficult to explain... I didn't even have a word for it until last year. I get the impression that it affects people differently.

I see it like the ocean... it is always there lapping at the shores but now and again it comes in tides of intensity. I got hit with a tidal wave last year and the tide has never gone back out... completely drowned my little island's flood defenses.

Sometimes it is like I just want to tear my head apart and claw at my brain to make it stop. I just want to rip it out and find a body that matches... but mostly there are two main feelings... the first is an intense jealousy of women and an overwhelming desire to be female. This is to the point where I've broken down in tears because I am not how I should be. The second feeling is a disgust at being male. This can be anything from being obsessed with loathing at body hair to wanting to take a knife to your bits to get rid of them. Accompanying this is distress at losing the hair on your head, the size of your feet, the size of your body in general including height, and just an overwhelming sense of being ugly.

I get anxiety over fear of transitioning, fear of not being able to pass, fear of how others will perceive me, and fear of losing the very few people who are in my life (mostly family), fear of rejection. Every step I take towards transitioning and being a woman, I get a sense of elation. Every doubt and fear I have causes depression. These can switch from one extreme to the other in literally minutes.

As a teenager I couldn't stop crossdressing, I tend to mix clothing these days. Masturbation was a release, I saw it as a chore... the longer I went without, the more female I felt, after release however, I became full of self loathing, guilt, and embarrassment but that shame of myself for not living up to society's expectations allowed me to control the desire to be female... but only to a very limited extent... as in the need to masturbate several times a day not because I enjoyed it but because I couldn't stop what I now recognise as dysphoria. Since I started acknowledging who I am and dealing with it, I hardly have any need to masturbate at all. The feeling of shame, embarrassment and fear, is what is holding me back and if masturbating causes those feelings then I can do without it.

So back to the tidal wave. I had been suppressing my femininity for about 9 years at the request of my wife. I was trying my best to be masculine and it was causing me a lot of stress which was compounded by further stress elsewhere in my life. I was also feeling very depressed but I did not recognise this because of the levels of anxiety and stress that I was experiencing. 2 years ago, I ended up in hospital over it and I started to slowly put my life back together again. Then my employer went under last year and I lost my job. Applying for new jobs I had to complete equality forms which require you to state your sex/gender in a binary fashion (male / female). My tidal defenses were pretending that gender did not exist and viewing the world as gender neutral. Being forced to choose a gender in an application form became more and more difficult to the point where I would spend a whole day physically upset at ticking the male box. I sought help from a friend who used to help out in the LGBTQ when I was at university and he basically left me standing in the middle of town crying my eyes out after coming out to him because he didn't know how to react or possibly some transphobia... I don't know, but he walked away from me almost fast enough to be running and when I tried to keep up, he said goodbye and dived into a busy shop... leaving me physically upset.

That's when the shaking started. I couldn't stop physically shaking for 3 days, and I just kept on breaking down in tears. I pretended I had an upset stomach, so I could hide in the bathroom and cry. When the shaking finally stopped physically, it still felt like there was shaking and shivers underneath my skin that I couldn't make stop. This lasted 2 weeks. In the end I had to confess to my wife who already knew I wanted to be a woman before we married, that I couldn't control it anymore. I reached out to a mental health charity and booked an appointment for my GP. My GP referred me to the Gender Clinic and I cancelled my appointment with the charity. I reached out online and received a lot of support from both Susans and from Transgender Zone. I was encouraged to seek out my local trans group and I get incredible support from them.

So that's my experience of dysphoria... It is currently almost constant. I can spend hours obsessed with a tiny fine hair I miss in shaving my arms. I can cope with my legs, chest and face, to a certain degree because I don't see them constantly but my forearms and hands, I have to keep them shaven or it upsets me. I try to avoid mirrors and I try to avoid thinking too much about that thing between my legs. I still struggle to keep it together. I can just cope with the help of my transgroup and since I started medicating but I am on such a low dosage it basically stops me wanting to top myself but not much more.

I hope that helps

love
Alice

[F_P_M]

for me it manifested more as a low grade feeling that something was just not right, that I wasn't right, that I didn't "fit in" how I was supposed to.
And then this sort of numb fog of just going through the motions.

In my case I didn't really have a "I hate this" dramatic dysphoric moment and I suppose a great deal of any dysphoria I would have felt was very much lessened by growing up with very very few gender boundries. I can only remember I think TWICE in my life i've been excluded from something becase of my biological sex.
and both times I was ANGRY and indignant becuase it was stupid.
but twice, in 33 years?
that's not a lot now is it?

Now in my case i've never "been like the other girls" and always felt "other" but never really understood WHY. I mean when I look back there's hints. All those times I wanted to play the guy in games with my friends, all the male alter egos I created, all those times I put my hair up under a cap so I looked like I had short hair.
But I never really thought about it.
Even when i would say "oh yeah well i'm a guy trapped in a girl's body" it never bloomin' clicked. I assumed because I didn't stare in a mirror and cry and want to cut my boobs off I didn't have dysphoria.

In my case dysphoria has been a lifetime of just feeling like something isn't quite... right. A disconnect, a sort of dull sense of wrongness. I felt like I was acting, playing a part, performing a role.

I've had it honestly pretty easy tbh. Being a gender non conforming girl growing up was never an issue for me, it was socially acceptable in the 90s to be a tomboy with unconventional interests and my family, even my grandparents embraced it.
Higher education being "one of the guys" was also socially AOK and it was considered sort of funny that I was as crass and ridiculous as the guys I hung out with.
I was never made to feel wierd for being so tomboyish, and for a long long time that was enough.
The dull disconnect could be ignored, explained away as other things.

For me, when I look at myself in the mirror I can think "oh yeah, she looks alright" but I never feel totally connected to that reflection. Often it's like someone photoshopped my head onto a stranger's body and it's wierd and disorienting but not upsetting, just.. slightly odd.

And i suppose that's how i'd describe dysphoria in general. Just a feeling of "oddness" that never quite goes away.

I have ASD as well, and i'm demisexual and panromantic which adds another complicating factor to my childhood and teen interactions but ultimately, I feel more comfortable than I ever have dressed in men's clothing (it fits me! it's comfortable! omg) and binding my chest. I look in the mirror and I see someone more familiar, someone more comfortable, someone happier in their own skin and ultimately, that's the whole point isn't it? to be comfortable in our own skin.

[shepd]

Thanks everyone!  I have to say I do get the idea better now, and there are some personal experiences that line up with some of what's said here, but it's never been particularly extreme.  But I've always been absolutely terrible at self-analyzation and figuring out what I want.  Back in high school I made a point of figuring out how to coast through life and I'd been just doing that until this year when it all ground to a halt (no specific trigger, just a mental need to actually figure out what the hell is wrong with me).

The looking in the mirror thing and not being happy with what you see has been an issue for me for decades.  I actively avoid photographs for that same reason and hate looking at any of myself.  I'd never connected that with gender, just a general malaise from doing so.  I have also wished for a different body, but gender never played into that (hell, I'd go for no gender, but that's not exactly possible).

As for jealousy of the opposite sex, yeah, I've had that.  But, again, never in a way it would cause a panic attack.  Just disappointment when, for example, my wife was pregnant and later breast feeding that I could never do those things.  I know what anxiety and panic attacks are, I've had those (and rarely go a moment without some level of anxiety---something that cross-dressing helps relieve, oddly enough).

Now, I should say, my depression has never been what anyone would call mild.  I've gone to hospital for suicidal thoughts before due to it.

Well, in the end I guess a gender therapist is going to the be the right person to guide me through this.  At this point I'd love to start HRT, though, because I feel like a tool going outside knowing I look like a man in a dress rather than a woman.

[jesse135]

Dysphoria to me is getting up in the morning and suffering being alive because you look at your body and you know it's wrong. It's doing everyday things and feeling like an imposter and guilty in the wrong washroom when the washroom is needed. It's not respecting southern heritage because being called ma'am is not being called sir. Respect for both parties females and males, but just feels wrong inside. It's sexually frustrating, wanting to keep everything inside, a bubble up to the point of magmatic exhaustion. I would not wish it on my worst enemy!

[pamelatransuk]

Hello Shepd

For me GD manifests itself in different ways.

The most tolerable is when I am just depressed in the dulled sense. I know I should have been born a girl. I don't like my body and am uncomfortable in it. I get by acting and playing the role but know inside it is false.

It is more problematic when I simply cannot cope. I see women and feel jealous both of the way they look - breasts, curves etc - and the way they are perceived and treated as women. I constantly think of gender. I have a longing to be member of the other sex physically as I already am mentally. I hate all forms of body hair and seek its total elimination. Narrowly behind in second place is my hatred of my genitalia. My depression is hurtful and sometimes I have pains in the stomach and even occasionally in the throat. I lose motivation. I am frustrated and aggravated for long periods.

In 2016 the second form became the norm for me and in 2017 I was forced to seek help by therapy followed by HRT. I am now 14 months HRT and will be publicly transitioning in Summer.

I would not wish being transgender or to be precise suffering GD on my worst enemy.

I wish you success when seeing a gender therapist and if you chose to pursue, on your subsequent transition.

Hugs

Pamela