1. A state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life
2. abnormal depression and discontent
I started thinking about this now that I'm seeing a therapist and I feel like I will need to explain why I feel transgender, but,
I have to say, I'd never heard of that word before I started coming to Susan's. And people would make threads titled like, "Dysphoria, does it ever NOT bother you?"
But once I learned what the word meant, I felt more confused because I don't feel like I have that, at all. I don't feel dysphoric, ever.
I'm like an optimist to the extreme. I definitely don't like having a female body, but I'm pretty hopeful for my future that I can someday have a male body.
I'm pretty hopeful in general. I think, yeah, ->-bleeped-<- happens in life, but I can't let it get me down.
I haven't always been such an optimist, though. before I realized I was trans, I was miserable, suicidal, I didn't know what in the world was wrong with me.
But once I figured it out, I was like, "Oh... okay." all was right. It was like, now I know what I am, and what to do about it.
The main thing I don't like in my life, is that people consider me a girl. If people all thought of me as a guy, saw me as a guy, I don't think I would medically transition at all.
which then makes it seem like I'm doing this because I care what other people think of me. instead of doing it solely for myself.
But even that doesn't bother me enough that I would call it "dysphoria", because it doesn't bother me day to day. People are going to consider me a girl
until I medically transition. I have accepted that, and I deal with it fine. But if I couldn't be looking forward to the day when they would start considering
me a guy, then I wouldn't be so happy and fine.
So this is where my problem lies, I don't know how to tell someone, like my therapist, why I feel I am transgender when I can't say things like how I hate having a female
body or how often I feel dysphoric.
I am no more dysphoric about having a female body than I am about being overweight, or about not having a cool car.
It makes me feel like people, like my therapist, aren't going to believe me that I'm transgender, or aren't going to think that I need to medically transition to be happy if I'm already happy.
I definitely, without a doubt, want to work towards getting a male body, but I'm just so optimistic about it that I don't feel depressed or dysphoric.
Hey John. I have to tell you, you lost me. You say you don't deal with dysphoria. You have no problem with peolple seeing you as female, even though you 'might' like the male status more. Let me tell you about being trans. I am 53 years old. Have known since I was 4 years old, that I am male. It's not something you think about, it is something that you know. Just like you know the color of your eyes. It's who you are....no questions.
Dysphoria, for me, is...
waking up every morning and refusing to look in the mirror because I can't stand the body I see there.
wincing internally every time that a person refers to me as ma'am and wanting to correct them to sir.
watching my sons growing up and knowing that someday they're going to wonder why their daddy has breasts.
not wanting to be touched by anyone if the contact is near my chest.
hating my father for calling me 'his little girl', even if I've never been willing or able to tell him differently.
injuring myself as a teenager and into my adult years in hopes that I could make things 'go away'.
There's so much more, but the list would be endless and I don't want to remind people of a lot of the crap.
It sounds to me as if you are happier now than before you knew you were trans. You said you were "miserable, suicidal, I didn't know what in the world was wrong with me." But after knowing what the "problem" was you felt better: "now I know what I am, and what to do about it." And therefore, you are more optimistic.
I noticed in your next paragraph ("The main thing I don't like in my life...") that you said you might not medically transition if others perceived you as male. I think it's interesting that you chose to add the word "medically" versus just simply "transition." This tells me that transitioning without surgery could make you happy. Especially when I read this: "But if I couldn't be looking forward to the day when they would start considering me a guy, then I wouldn't be so happy and fine."
To me, that does point to some dysphoria, even if it isn't "day to day" or even perceivable to yourself due to your optimistic nature. No two trans people are alike. Everyone experiences dysphoria differently (if at all). So perhaps yours is more subtle than others.
Quote from: Adio on July 02, 2011, 01:40:08 PMI noticed in your next paragraph that you said you might not medically transition if others perceived you as male. I think it's interesting that you chose to add the word "medically" versus just simply "transition." This tells me that transitioning without surgery could make you happy. Especially when I read this: "But if I couldn't be looking forward to the day when they would start considering me a guy, then I wouldn't be so happy and fine."
To me, that does point to some dysphoria, even if it isn't "day to day" or even perceivable to yourself due to your optimistic nature. No two trans people are alike. Everyone experiences dysphoria differently (if at all). So perhaps yours is more subtle than others.
Well actually, I don't think transitioning without surgery could make me happy, because I don't think I will ever fully pass without surgery. And passing is all I care about. If I didn't know that surgery was an option, I bet I would be extremely depressed and be dysphoric then.
But if dysphoria is defined as an
abnormal discontent, then I don't think I have any. My discontent with life as being a female is so mild (because I'm so optimistic) that I'm no more discontent about being female than I am about not having a cool car. And no one would go to therapy to deal with their discontent about not having a cool car. My discontent is just not extreme enough, not harmful enough, to me that I need help dealing with it through therapy.
Now the only reason I'm going to therapy is so I can get on T and eventually surgery. But I feel like I couldn't convince someone (the therapist) very well that I am trans when I have really no disphoria.
I'm afraid he's going to think that I don't need T or surgery to be happy since I already am. But in reality, I DO need those. If I didn't think I could get those, then I would be really disphoric and then be real convincing to someone that I need to medically transition to be happy.
I understand what you're saying in the first part of your reply so I'm just going to address this:
Quote from: JohnAlex on July 02, 2011, 03:48:26 PM
Now the only reason I'm going to therapy is so I can get on T and eventually surgery. But I feel like I couldn't convince someone (the therapist) very well that I am trans when I have really no disphoria.
I'm afraid he's going to think that I don't need T or surgery to be happy since I already am. But in reality, I DO need those. If I didn't think I could get those, then I would be really disphoric and then be real convincing to someone that I need to medically transition to be happy.
Perhaps that's all you need to say. That you
do need T and surgery to be happy/happier. Because you do know that T and surgery exist, it's a sort of relief. You have the knowledge that "treatment" is out there, so why be dysphoric about your current situation when it can be "treated"?
Not sure what else to say really. Only you can decide if transitioning is right for you. It's not for your therapist to decide either. They should act as a guide in the process, but not as the ultimate say.
Hi John
Please forgive me for dropping in on the conversation, however I believe that what I have to say will give you insight into others who are in a similar situation. That is, they or we never suffered from any dysphoria or very little. I just recently posted a response in this thread, GID attacks post-op? (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,101068.msg748057.html#msg748057) and another post in this thread, So how long have you felt that you had GID? (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,92939.msg692404.html#msg692404) with a few more reasons. Which, will give you some background.
Yes, I wanted what I had gone, I wanted breasts and I wanted to be female at various stages. However, this was 30 odd years ago and knowledge on this was extremely scarce and I had some knowledge of the transition process, but I had not at that stage actually applied it to myself. I accepted my body as it was and I just lived my life from day to day. I had no distress at all, well maybe I just might concede a tiny bit of distress in my mind about wanting to be a female with the appropriate body. Because I was constantly thinking about it more and more up until I left my family and friends and wondering why I was thinking about it all the time.
Do not be confused, because others have dysphoria and you do not, because you are not alone in this. Just do the things that will make you happy and if that involves hormones and surgery, then so be it. If you make a mistake, then you must realise that you will have to live with those consequences.
You can say exactly what you feel, mainly you have virtually no dysphoria to the therapist and also mention that it is what you want. It is a medical condition and you was born with it and you do not have a choice in the matter. See the wiki articles on Etiology of Transsexualism (https://www.susans.org/wiki/Category:Etiology_of_Transsexualism)", where 'scientists' are discovering the effects of 'hormones' on us while we are still a foetus. This is just nature at work and we can take steps we deem necessary, so that we can function in society.
Warmest regards
Sarah B
Dysphoria is different for everyone. For me, it's every time in the month when the red appears for a week, every time I look in the mirror and see breasts that shouldn't be there and genitalia I have absolutely no attachment to, and a million little other things that make me feel wrong. Every time someone tells me what a pretty "girl" I am, I cringe, and I just know that when my body and hormones match the guy inside, I'll be whole. :)
You're lucky to feel the way you do John, but I can tell like the others that commented that you do indeed have your own form of dysphoria, it just manifests in a different way.
Hi JohnAlex,
from the other side of the "fence" if it's ok?
Dysphoria at your age may quite easily be just as you experience it. BUT if you're trans it will grow, and it will grow, and it... ok?
Be happy that you are not yet having some of these God awful GID attacks that most of us mostly older MtFs know all too well, for sure.
Think yourself 40 if you can, with a big butt, breasts, bingo-wings, all female features and the absolute certainty that you are a male and no perceivable way out of the wrong body-shell!?
Maybe at your young age that's too far reached but I can promise it's only a function of time to get more intense.
How could I (personally) live so long and handle it? Well, I sure done some of the things as getting more and more androgynous and then the day comes it will not work anymore – if you're trans that is. It be either transition or die. NO JOKE.
If you comfortable with your situation right now in the knowing there will be a "fix" in the future for you, that's just great. No depression, no GID, why spend money even on therapy?
Enjoy life and come back when you know therapy becomes imperative.
Meanwhile be glad you do not SUFFER any GID, it's plain awful when it comes over you, then you will know what's your next step.
Now how about that?
Take care,
Axelle
GID gets gut-wrenching and tummy-twisting, no need to find it --- it will find you if you are trans.
Quote from: Axelle on July 03, 2011, 01:13:36 PM
GID gets gut-wrenching and tummy-twisting, no need to find it --- it will find you if you are trans.
Obviously I cannot speak from the F2M perspective, but from the other side, I would not concur that every M2F has 'gut-wrenching and tummy-twisting' effects from their personal levels of dysphoria. It is a gross over-generalization to attempt to advance that sort of comment. While that may be your experience, it is not what everyone sees, and I say that as someone that had accident sites picked out at the ages of 18 and 20 where it could have been ruled something other than suicide...
Quote from: mowdan6 on July 02, 2011, 01:14:00 PM
Hey John. I have to tell you, you lost me. You say you don't deal with dysphoria. You have no problem with peolple seeing you as female, even though you 'might' like the male status more. Let me tell you about being trans. I am 53 years old. Have known since I was 4 years old, that I am male. It's not something you think about, it is something that you know. Just like you know the color of your eyes. It's who you are....no questions.
^Incorrect, and closed minded.
Some people feel male their entire lives. Some don't feel male, or can't consciously acknowledge that they feel male from a young age. That doesn't make them any less trans.
Personally, I wished I were a boy from a young age, but I didn't feel male, because I was in a females body and everyone treated me as female. In my opinion, gender is largely what society makes of it, so being perceived as male by society is very important to me. Although I have never felt male, because I was unable to ignore my female body and the way people perceive me, I have still been diagnosed with gender identity disorder by a psychologist that specializes in trans health.
Everyone is different. John, if medically transitioning is really what you want, just be honest and your therapist will see that. I can relate to absolutely everything you've said in your post, and I have a hard time explaining myself when I get the 3rd degree by ignorant family members about being trans, but I am 100% confident about transition being right for me, as are several specialists.
Dysphoria related to gender is not dissatisfaction with life as a whole but with the current state of your body. Discomfort in it, to say the least.
You mentioned you don't like being seen as a girl by others... that could be considered 'social dysphoria' depending on how bad the feeling is.
Gender dysphoria, for me, is the worst non-physical feeling I've ever had.
^I'd choose physical pain over dysphoria a thousand times.
Like someone mentioned earlier, for me (and from what I've heard, a lot of other people) it comes and goes. I'll be good for weeks, actually feel halfway self confident, and then one day I'll just wake up wanting to blow my brains out. It's terrifying, how it comes absolutely out of nowhere.
Being called my birth name sickens me, but it pisses me off. Getting called a girl sets me off like nothing else, and usually ends in at least an argument. So, the whole uber-depressed-wanting-to-lay-down-in-front-of-a-bus thing is odd, and aggravating, to me.
Quote from: mowdan6 on July 02, 2011, 01:14:00 PM
Hey John. I have to tell you, you lost me. You say you don't deal with dysphoria. You have no problem with peolple seeing you as female, even though you 'might' like the male status more. Let me tell you about being trans. I am 53 years old. Have known since I was 4 years old, that I am male. It's not something you think about, it is something that you know. Just like you know the color of your eyes. It's who you are....no questions.
First off I just can't keep myself from saying, not cool man. Not cool at all. John was extremely direct in his original post about how he identified. To me it sounds like you're basically challenging his status, acting as if his experience should match your ideas of what a trans person goes through based on personal experience. We are all different and all deal in different ways. From the OP I can easily see that John genuinely desires to transition to male fully.
@ John, I have completely been there. I went through a long period of my life being very understanding about the idea that people saw me a certain way and just going with it. I was always elated when I did pass, but if I didn't I just tried to be logical and understanding of the other person's view. I eventually came out to everyone in my life, including every new person who met me lol. I went into overdrive with coming out because at least that way some people would call me male, and see me as male despite my appearance.
For a long time I thought I didn't care if I ever had the surgery. I wanted it, I wanted it badly, but I just didn't see it as a reality for me. I saw my therapist for 2 years before asking for my note for T, even though she would probably have written after the first 3-6 months. For whatever reason I had a mental block about the idea that transitioning was actually an option for me and I honestly believed it. So in turn I just dealt with the optimistic view points, like someone would respect my identity despite my body and would love me as a man regardless of rather or not I had surgery. It almost seems to me like this is some kind of coping mechanism now that I look back on it.
I've rarely ever had feelings of dysphoria and dysphoria has never been a driving aspect of my treatment in therapy or my transition. It never stopped my therapist from believing I was trans. I was just very clear about how I saw myself, how I wanted to be male completely, how I would prefer that I had been born male to begin with. That being male would make me happier and felt right for me. You don't have to have dysphoria to feel and know that who/what you are is not who/what you should be. So just make sure that when you do talk about being okay with people seeing you as female or something like that, try to follow up with some commentary about how you would prefer to be seen and how much happier that would make you, how natural it would feel for you. Basically, reinforce it through repetition when necessary that even though you are OKAY with being seen as female because you recognize your body as it is that you DO feel like a man regardless and express what your ultimate goals are for transitioning. Good luck man!