I've been dealing with these waves of gender dysphoria for a few years now. A couple of days I will be fine with myself, then I somehow switch over and have this constant wish I were female. It has just gone back and forth like this for about 2-3 years now (I just turned 21).
Is there anything I can do to manage dysphoria other than transitioning?
I really really really would love to just feel happy with myself how I am.
I just hate always wishing I was something that I'm not.
Is there anything I can do to manage it without actually transitioning in any way?
I know people always say it just gets worse as time goes on and that I'll either need to accept that I am at least partially transgender or that I'll die with sadness in my heart after decades of struggle, but is there ANYTHING else that helps alleviate dysphoria?
I believe you're the only person who can or should decide what is best for you in the long run. Your decision doesn't have to be zero or 100 percent, all or nothing on a calendar. You can pick and choose. Equip yourself with good information so you can make good decisions.
How do you define female? I don't think the answer is just a chromosome or a purse. If you define female as a set of characteristics you aspire to have, perhaps helped along with biological fine-tuning (HRT), I think you will be surprised how achievable some things are. If you want to.
What I have read the most from other people is that dealing with disphobia is like a balancing act. When disphobia is not as bad as the cost of transition, people just stay how they are. When they reach a point that disphobia is worse then the cost, they start to transition. As you get older dealing with disphobia becomes harder due to outside influence. If I assume you are single or maybe just dating a person, you have limited commitments as a male. When you get married as a male and have kids as a male, you have to factor them into your plan to deal with disphobia. It should not surprise you that your cis female wife, which I am sure will have told you more than once during your marriage you need to have more emotions and feelings, basically she is saying you need to act like a girl, does not want you to become a girl in real life. Yes, some marriages survive, but a lot no do not and a lot of nasty things are said, because people feel hurt.
What causes your disphobia? As an example, you are not going to wake up tomorrow and your penis will just have magically disappeared. If hair is your problem, then removing it is an option and that might help with your disphobia.
What do you want out of life? Do you want a wife and kids? You can still have a family, it is something that you will need to be upfront about your disphobia and some mental desire to be female. Tell them the best case scenario and worse transition case scenario, you can't promise anything.
Transiting is also different for every person. You can present female without hormones. You can take hormones and start to appear more female. Hormones basically have the same effect on everyone. You can stop at hormones, there is no rule you have to surgery.
On a personal level, I am fortunate that I did not discover the concept of transgender until I was in my thirties, I just never understood some different feeling that I would get from time to time. The bad side is that I have a wife and child and a clear line that with transition, my marriage will end. I have good days and I have bad days. If I stay on this road will I continue to be sad? Yes. If I get on the transition road and lose my family will I be sad? Yes. The grass is not always greener on the other side, sometimes you have two yards with dead grass.
At the beginning of the day and at the end of the day never let anyone pressure you into a move. You are in 100% control.
Youbdo what you can and then what you have to so the ones who love you don't lose you. My choice was transition or a funeral. I thought I'd at least give transition a shot since the alternative was always an option. But as has been stated, you may be able to manage your situation. Many brave souls do. god bless you all.
You can throw yourself into work and/or school to distract yourself from it.
That can help, at least for awhile.
You can find other ways to distract yourself, which also can help. My dysphoria didn't really ever go away, but I was pretty good at distracting myself from it for awhile, even to the point I thought it was gone forever. Only for it to reemerge. Then I distracted myself again, and it worked again for awhile.
There's no reason you couldn't do this too. I've had a much harder time distracting myself from my dysphoria after I was done with school and had established a successful career.
I'd say at 21 you're best off just getting over it and transitioning. I've certainly heard of people getting all the way to the end of their life having not transitioned, but its a tragic way to live your life. The thought of doing that scares me a lot more than transitioning (and that scares me too).
If you do hold out there's every chance you'll end up transitioning in another 10 or 20 years anyway and severely regret not doing it earlier, only with the added complication of marriage and family.
I've been on HRT 9 years now and not socially transitioned. It's been difficult and there's no way I'd do that if I were younger.
If you try HRT out you'll find out what life could be like. I doubt you could stop after that.
I had to "Transition". Not in the sense you may think. I transitioned from being the lifeless, soulless "Thing" I became by not taking on the Trans-Beast, into a for real person.
For decades I relied on the 3D's. Diversions, Distractions, and Denial. There was also a small 'd', drunk. They all kind of sort of worked. Except for that slow morphing into a lifeless soulless thing part :'(
Then came the excrement hitting the air handler, once again. Once again another major life disaster. This time bringing too much "quality time" alone with my thoughts. I eventually concluded that pretty much all of my life disasters, of which there were many, too many, were all rooted in how I was NOT handling being trans.
After two utter failed transition experiments in my early 20's transitioning was not an option. I needed to fix myself on the inside, not just put on a fresh coat of paint. I read a ton of self help books. Worked on loosing the ton of Shame & Guilt accumulated since childhood about being different. I eventually found a 'local' TG Support Group, the first one ever I went to. I was totally blown away being in the same room with about 20 others whose life stories and feelings almost sounded like my own. By the end of the 3rd meeting I knew for sure I needed to be there.
It's now 8 years since I first met with the group moderator. I still live and present primarily as male. I work every day at balancing all the aspects of what makes me, Me. Gender is just one of several. All these aspects are pretty important as to how I see and define myself by. I also fell back on my old life saver that I resorted to several times over the decades for the much needed "Brain Reset", HRT. Been on feminizing doses for much of this time. I also still see a for real Gender Therapist as there is still a lot of Shame, some guilt and an unhealthy amount of internalized transphobia I deal with.
It is a difficult balancing act. Would fully transitioning be any easier? For me probably not. There will be a short term gain of being and feeling 100% but the real potential risks involved I am unwilling to take on as long as I do not NEED to transition. I just want or would like to... in a perfect world. Most days are good. Some days are so-so. Sporadic hours to days are bad. Just like any other persons. Yes the bad days are mainly GD derived. TBH - the transitioning thoughts/fantasy is more being able to run away or have another bigger reason why somethings may not be "right" in my life.
However, I know in my heart now, that if the time ever comes that I feel I NEED to transition, I can this time, and I will. All the work I put into healing myself has put me into a far far better place then I was almost 40 years ago.
We all need to find a way to balance all or most of the conflicting needs and wants in our lives. We all need to find means to manage the GD as it will likely never go away. Stuffing by and large never works, based on all the anecdotal data. What you find that works TODAY, is not necessarily that which will work tomorrow. Life is in a constant state of changing.