So the past few days, maybe up to a week, since really coming clean with myself that I am without a doubt on the transgender spectrum I've ran into something I'm curious if others have experienced...
Essentially, a week ago if you asked me if I had gender related body dysphoria, I would have said something along the lines of "not really". I've mentioned this in other threads, but my feeling towards my body was something I'd usually classify as indifference, with my feelings towards wanting to be the opposite gender being more of a preference for female rather than a condemnation of being male. But in the past few days I've become increasingly obsessive and distraught about the usual masculine traits in a way that is definitively dysphoria as others have described. I don't mean distraught to the point of causing personal harm or doing something rash or anything, just more of a growing hate/feeling of despair regarding things such as my overabundant body hair or lack of head hair (though that is getting a ton better with treatment) that I don't really remember ever experiencing before even when I was truly depressed. And this seemed to kick in right around the time I could state unambiguously to myself that I am indeed transgender,, as though just the acknowledgement itself was a on switch for these feelings.
Sooo, is this common or...?
I don't know about common, but after finally getting some counseling for what I took as my simple cross dressing issue, I finally decided, after some 30 years, that I was, in fact, trans.
I've heard someone say, "You can't put toothpaste back in the tube."
I think that about sums it up!
^ Good quote!
Something similar happened with me, Roll. For many years, I acknowledged that there was a female part to me, but never realised it could truly be part of (or indeed the whole of) my identity. I was never bothered about body hair, genitals or anything, and never considered that I might be transgender. Suddenly, a few months ago, I came to the realisation that in fact I was (at least partly), and from that moment had a very unpleasant week of wanting to cry all the time, at every part of me and how wrong it was. However, this calmed down a lot when I started experimenting with clothes and make-up, when I could look myself in the mirror and convince myself I was seeing a woman. Now it comes and goes. Feel free to send me an inbox if you wanna know any more!
L x
I think this is common. It happened to me as well, my body was never really an issue, I mean I had insecurities but didn't hate it. Ironically when I achieved the body type that I thought I always wanted (very muscular) is when I hated it the most because it was putting me further away from looking feminine.
It's like taking the bandage off your eyes. Even if you try to cover them again, you already saw the real you.
Yeah I had something like this too. For me I didn't realize how much of what I felt in my life in particular was all interconnected. While I was in denial I was someone who felt like crap all the time, and oh by the way I would fantasize about becoming a woman from time to time. It wasn't until I realized I was trans and not just a guy with a kink that I realized how intertwined everything was. In fact I had to re-learn how to think. Before I would want to wear skirts, but it was a weird urge bubbling in the back of my mind, once I let it out I thought wanting to wear a skirt in the same way I would think "I want pizza for dinner." That caused a lot of confusion for me. Right now you should do what you need to do to feel comfortable. You don't have to do anything you don't want to, and you have all the time you need.
I think I am experiencing this right now. Never really felt dislike of my body, other than extra weight. Just a desire to be a woman - and most of that showed up at night as I let my mind wonder.
These past few weeks and even more these days - every woman I see, has me wanting to be that - and feeling a strong sense of frustration at looking like a linebacker. I just admitted I might be trans a few days ago.
Maybe some of it is not excitement per say, but something a long the lines of a new endeavor to wrap myself in??
Would love to know how it goes for you,
Sarah
Wow, everything people are adding just pretty much hit point by point more of what I'm feeling. For instance, losing weight and looking more like I thought I wanted to was sort of my "wait, this is better but something is still fundamentally off" trigger to send me down this path to begin with. I definitely played the nighttime fantasies I hid behind telling myself it was probably just a kink/fetish to myself game. And more and more I find myself just straight up envious of women I see around me.
I wish I could delve into the hair and makeup more as an outlet, but the first is hard to do wile I'm actively trying to fix hair loss, and too scared to have a wig and cosmetics in my amazon history or risk someone opening the package by mistake. Toss in a terrible bathroom situation and I'm kinda screwed on that front. (I'm in an above garage apartment with the bathroom a tiny thing detached downstairs in the middle of a trafficed area, so no privacy there except at 4 am.) In the meanwhile I've been playing with makeup apps actually, but I've been unable to get a decent picture without beard shadow so that's kind of killing it. (Though I did notice I have amazing lips! :D)
I've been encountering the exact same thing. I switched frominternally identifying as "questioning" to "female" this past week, and suddenly I feel irked by every little reminder that the world at large considers me male. Every little "sir" or "bud" or even well intentioned things like being called a gentleman feel like little painful pinpricks on the inside. A friend suggested that I should grow a mustache and I responded feeling completely disgusted with the notion and a little frustrated that they would think I would want one.
It is occurring to me that throughout my life I have never really wanted to be a man. I didn't think of it that way at the time, I just said that I didn't want to be super masculine. Now I realize that I don't want to be recognized as male at all, and that this has been a fundamental difference between me and every other male I've known. They all had different ideas about what being male meant and how they wanted to define themselves, while I could never come across any concept of being male that felt right to me.
I'm also getting more and more disgruntled with having to change out of my dresses and skirts when I leave the house. I find myself wanting to wear these out, and having to take them off and put guy clothes back on feels like hiding myself. I don't even dislike my shorts and T-shirts, I just dislike feeling obligated to wear them over skirts and dresses.
Roll, now that you've acknowledged not just that you're trans, but that you're female, of course you're going to be more sensitive to misgendering, by both yourself and others, and most of that is going to stem from your embodiment. That dysphoria was always there, but it was effectively repressed. Basically, your subconscious waited until you were ready for it.
Ready or not...
I came out to some people over these last couple weeks - a huge weight lifted. But also the first times where I really cried looking at myself in the mirror and just not seeing there from here. It feels impossible, but, hey, I'm still here and so are you.
I haven't been crying surprisingly, and I've always been a crier. ("Just look straight ahead, don't let them see that you're crying while watching Tangled... again.") It's just that bottomless pit in my stomach feeling. Which really annoys me, because crying is a pretty good outlet and would be vastly preferable.
I wonder if this does also stem from not just the presence of the issues, but hinges perhaps even more acutely on the realization of the long and expensive road to solve them. Like my eyebrows are pretty bad, but they aren't bothering me because I know that's a simple fix if I were able to do them at the moment. Cost dealing with potential FFS issues, hair removal, transplants if necessary (damn you propecia, work faster), and so forth is becoming an increasing concern while I'm planning ahead, and I might be letting that get to me far too much for where I am in the process. I have to figure out how to pull those thoughts back and take it one day at a time probably.
Ugh, can't believe I still have almost a week until next therapy appointment. Never in a million years thought I'd be looking forward to that so much.
I found this program called Faceapp on my phone which does a gender transition on the face. And it was really cool seeing a picture of her/me.
I can't even imagine in my brain my body looking feminine, but this picture is a nice start.
Okay that app is amazing. The female 1 filter is pretty much my dream come true, and I can even see my face in it enough to think it might actually be possible with HRT/FFS. Though female 2 creeped me out a little bit because I look like a young Hillary Clinton with a touch of Renee Zellwegger.
And wow, some dysphoria definitely kicking in because I hit the "pan" filter just clicking through and the thick beard just sent my stomach intro free fall for a moment. A little too close to home. (Though applying the male filter just made me chuckle, since it was so exaggerated it made me look like Ron Perlman. So from Hillary Rodham Zellweger to Hellboy, that's great.)
Quote from: Roll on September 01, 2017, 11:09:52 AM
Okay that app is amazing. The female 1 filter is pretty much my dream come true, and I can even see my face in it enough to think it might actually be possible with HRT/FFS. Though female 2 creeped me out a little bit because I look like a young Hillary Clinton with a touch of Renee Zellwegger.
And wow, some dysphoria definitely kicking in because I hit the "pan" filter just clicking through and the thick beard just sent my stomach intro free fall for a moment. A little too close to home. (Though applying the male filter just made me chuckle, since it was so exaggerated it made me look like Ron Perlman. So from Hillary Rodham Zellweger to Hellboy, that's great.)
Funny Fem1 looks awful on me, but 2 is right on and gives me a lot of hope.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Once i stripped away the denial, the dysphoria kicked in. For a good 1.5 years i so wished i could go back and take the blue pill, which culminated in some significant depression. I worked through it and now i accept what i've really always known. and yes, reading i am
not alone really helps.
on a side, omg i love and hate that app :D
I'm glad you brought this up!! I've been wondering this exact same thing lately. I've become quite dysphonic these last two years, where beforehand I don't remember really noticing it as much. I think our minds protect ourselves when we are deceiving ourselves. We're seeing only what we want to see. Once we've come to accept that we're trans, everything starts to set us off. One example for me, I started to dislike sex with my wife because I was doing it "as a man" which bothered me greatly...
The other day I was at my pharmacy for something for my plantar fasciitis... I just returned from a medical trip where I saw an endocrinologist, but since I'm in the military I have to wait for my commander to sign off on my hormone treatment. And so when I was getting my foot medicine I had a moment where I was begging in my head for there to be my hormones put in as well. Of course they weren't... but it surprised me a little how my thoughts were so desperate. I was wondering, why now? Why am I so desperate now?
And of course it's just because I'm sick and tired of living in the wrong body.
Good luck to you, OP.
~Love, Ashley
Quote from: KageNiko on September 01, 2017, 12:55:22 PMI've become quite dysphonic these last two years, where beforehand I don't remember really noticing it as much. I think our minds protect ourselves when we are deceiving ourselves. We're seeing only what we want to see. Once we've come to accept that we're trans, everything starts to set us off.
This is a good thread. So much truth. I attended the Gender Odyssey conference in Seattle last weekend, where I gained quite a bit of perspective on who I am. Since then, I've been having a difficult time. I think my 'mental protection filter' has been eroded, leaving me open to fully experience the GD I've been suppressing for years and years. It's liberating, terrifying, depressing, and enlightening.
After starting HRT & being able to get out now and then as Sarah, I get dysphoria really badly when I have to dress male for work. I've never felt GD worse than this before.
The thing that often sets it off though is my voice. I know I don't have a very passable feminine voice yet, but I much prefer it to the deep grumbly voice. If I notice I slipped that far back into that voice, I get really upset. Similarly, if I have to yell or assert authority as a male, I'm hit hard with GD. I had to do this recently when there were some loud & obnoxious teenage boys at my work. I HATED it. Thankfully they listened & calmed down.
When it hits me that hard I have to sit down & take some deep breaths, but it's always still there until I can get home & changed into something normal (feminine).
Wow, I'm definitely becoming more sensitive to things. So with the titular self recognition, I kicked my exercise up a notch (HRT waiting until weight loss done, so more exercise means sooner HRT!) and have been going all out on grooming I never bothered with before (everything from teeth whitening to full body lotion application). This apparently did not go unnoticed. I was talking with my family and something about my increased exercise came up, and someone said (in completely good humor, as they have no idea) "So, who is she?". I didn't even understand the question at first, and must have looked confused, so she said "You're doing (insert laundry list of changes here), so who's the girl?". It had never crossed my mind someone would think that was my motivation, so I just kind of mumbled something unintelligible and ducked around a corner to kind of gather my thoughts for a second because I really wanted to just say "me" (but that would have been the worst timing ever). Finally I managed to call out some line about Amazon causing a chain reaction of cheap product recommendations after I bought one thing and I was getting pulled in by impulse buys, but that single moment I was caught so off guard... I don't even know exactly, it's not like it felt horrible, but it didn't feel good. That an errant comment can throw me so off is a new one for me.
Quote from: Roll on September 01, 2017, 08:06:29 PM
"You're doing (insert laundry list of changes here), so who's the girl?".
If this question happens again, give them your preferred name. If they ask when they can meet her, you can say she is the shy type and they will meet her soon enough. You can talk about how much you have in common without lying and to deflect a question, you can say you really don't know her all that well yet.
Quote from: Dena on September 01, 2017, 09:31:14 PM
If this question happens again, give them your preferred name. If they ask when they can meet her, you can say she is the shy type and they will meet her soon enough. You can talk about how much you have in common without lying and to deflect a question, you can say you really don't know her all that well yet.
That would be fun, if I only had one yet. I'm really bad at picking names, even for games or whatever I just rip off existing characters for names. :D My cat is literally just named "cat" in Japanese (Neko!). Used to have a female name I loved when I was a kid, but it is waaaaaaaaay too close to my sister's name to not be creepy to use.
Funny to see the comments about people noticing the change in appearance - I too lost some weight, and generally have been paying more attention to my appearance. Since coming out to myself about being a woman, suddenly I look better as a man than I ever did. That's a horrifying irony indeed. I've got married, straight, male coworkers complementing my looks - it'll be interesting to see what they do when I get a boy cut. At some point they'll figure it out, probably before I'm ready for them to, but I'll manage.
I also think they notice the weight lifted from me. Several people comment, "I can see your eyes now!" I see it in my photos too - my eyes are open, I'm part of the world, even in male drag.
The difference is that, at least when the dysphoria isn't too debilitating, I see hope when I look at the mirror. For the first time ever I give a darn about my body. Before, it was just, "QUICK, do the fastest thing possible to get done" when I was grooming and the like. Now there is some hope, even if sometimes the path looks so incredibly long and difficult I don't know how I'll manage. But hope is pretty powerful. Before, when I didn't have that, I also didn't have the dysphoria as much - I just had disassociation and avoidance, as if the body wasn't me.
Exactly! In my case there was actually a cause and effect at play, in that looking better as a man was a big part of me admitting that wasn't what I wanted to look like.
Though I was a bit extreme in the past that I never took care of myself in even basic ways, because at some fundamental level I just didn't think it was worth maintaining what I saw. I am now thinking of it like how some people won't hesitate to trash a hotel room or someone else's house during a party, as though I was a guest without any stake in what eventually happened to my body. Coupled with some good old depression it was a recipe for disaster that I am now desperately trying to clean up.
I mean... I've gotten up early for a week to do some yoga (I suck at it, but the feminine association, even if that's a stereotype, has been appealing to me and made me give it a try to work on my severely lacking flexibility and posture) and go for a run. I've never done anything remotely like that before, even when I was actually healthy and in shape. (In those cases it was a grudging "ugh, fine, I'll go to the gym but I'm eating McDonald's fries after".)
It's a strange thing to think that working towards "being a woman" (in the physically feminine sense) in turn makes you more attractive to women... But then I guess that is sort of the entire concept behind being metrosexual.
I think it's a normal reaction.
Before you have a diagnosis can be a different mental state than after you have a diagnosis. Same with figuring out if you have the trans condition. Before you know, you can put your negative feelings down to any number of other causes.
I didn't think much of my height before my "diagnosis". I don't think a great deal of it right now, but I have thought about it more than at any point previously, for obvious reasons. You're going to think about whether you measure up, in my case literally, to that which you feel you are. Creating a new source of anxiety for things that didn't so much matter before.
Like you, I was indifferent to many things I'm now much more aware of. I haven't allowed them to beat me down, though. I always felt more unique than typical, more odd than normal, so 'measuring up' to others' standards isn't that important to me.
N.B. - I would also suggest that dissociation from the body is a fairly common reaction in trans individuals as well. The less dissociated from the body you become as you get closer to what you are in transition, the more attention you pay to your appearance, or the more comfortable you are with examining it.
Quote from: SaraDanielle on September 01, 2017, 06:55:42 AM
I found this program called Faceapp on my phone which does a gender transition on the face. And it was really cool seeing a picture of her/me.
I can't even imagine in my brain my body looking feminine, but this picture is a nice start.
Oh my god, this app. Firstly, I was mega-happy to see that the 'female' version of my face isn't much different, while the 'male' is unrecognisable. Secondly, I realised the potential for doing this to celebrities (google images) and friends (facebook photos). Been giggling for the last half an hour at how much the female Stephen Fry looks like an old schoolmate of mine.
Also, Roll, I sympathise with everything, especially the crying bit. Many times recently I've really needed a good cry but couldn't summon one.
Forewarning: This is going to be long and not particularly worth reading. I just needed to vent. :D
So It's been over a month since I posted this thread originally and I've had another huge bout of increasing dysphoria and just need somewhere to vent. As I've mentioned elsewhere I've been doing my makeup and pretty much dressing every second I can be in private. It's gotten to the point though that I'm scared it's on the counter productive side, because I have been actively avoiding leaving my little loft area because I can't bring myself to change out of what I now consider my real clothes. Taking off my cute little wig (short one I've been wearing in pictures) is even worse. A day or two ago I thought I was in the clear for the night at around 10pm, so I did my makeup and was really happy with it. Then my sister surprised me by calling upstairs (no visibility to where I am) to ask for help with her homework (she is failing calculus and I am her defacto tutor as the only one in the house who can do math), and as a good sister (I like saying that) I love to help out as I can. But this meant a fast scrub of all my makeup and a clothing change.
Oh my God I had no idea how hard it would be. I could feel that drop in the pit of my stomach like I was on a roller coaster, watching myself rush scrub away my face without having time to enjoy it for a while. And yet again I wanted desperately to cry but just couldn't, which made me feel even worse. I want to cry so badly. Just a good, healthy soulful cry. So that triggered something I've never really experienced before: Pure spite for testosterone because I can't just let it all out.
What really got me tonight... So I'm sitting here, no makeup on yet since its still early and I learned my lesson, but well shaved and in full regalia so to speak, doing vocal exercises and just seeing how my voice is going. Turns out not too bad. I downloaded a feminizing app for comparison, and my unmodified voice actually sounded more realistically female than the apps for the most part. So I got an idea, opened up my webcam and recorded myself speaking in that voice. It felt good. It was a neutral voice and still needs a lot of work in speech patterns and what not (I have unusual speech patterns in general though courtesy of spending more time reading than talking with other human beings combined with a very slight impediment, so it helped it didn't really sound male either). So I have no real need to keep the video, so deleted it. Now, at this point I should say I never use my webcam for pictures, video, etc., so my gallery is virtually empty. So when I deleted the video and it jumped to the next picture in the gallery, it was an image from about two years ago when I had my head shaved and an extra 60 pounds. I went from a video of me all dressed up, even if sans makeup, to that. I felt like I was walking along in a park, smelling flowers and enjoying the sun then tripped on a decomposing corpse. The shock was unreal, and I hit delete so fast it was like I was squashing a bug that startled me. But now it's in my head. So yeah.
Rant all you need, hon. I'm sure we've all been there. I used to only dress completely in secret at home, and there were many times over the years when I'd get all made up & then my friend (one of the only ones I had left) would call up & want to drop by or go to dinner or something. I started to really resent him after a while, since he was keeping me from being myself (plus I had the stress of hiding everything before he got there).
Be careful you don't turn your frustrations on your family or friends. I was just lucky my friend wasn't the kind to easily offend, so he's still my friend.
I've managed to get rid of all my old pictures, so the odds of me running across one is highly unlikely. I hated looking at myself. If I had to look in a mirror, I'd look without actually looking at myself (not easy to do).
Hang in there sister, it gets better!
Quote
I've managed to get rid of all my old pictures, so the odds of me running across one is highly unlikely. I hated looking at myself. If I had to look in a mirror, I'd look without actually looking at myself (not easy to do).
Hang in there sister, it gets better!
I have one big benefit going for me on looking in mirrors lately: I have terrible vision without my glasses on, and the glasses aren't very feminine so I take them off to gauge myself. The result is a nice blur effect that makes it more difficult to see beard stubble and imperfections. :D
The picture thing makes me extremely sad, as I have a few that I really love aside from looking at myself. Primarily of me with my little sister and nephews when they were all little (they are about the same age because of 18 year gap between my brother and me, then another between me and my sister). More recent stuff I at least have my hair grown out some, am typically shaved, and have most of the weight off, and I can accept at this point (since I see the potential), but the 12 year old photos are just brutal since they were in the height of depression. I hate the thought of getting rid of records of what truly good memories I had during that depression, but it's just so hard to look at myself in them.
Roll,
Don't make hasty decisions!
Your post has given me pause to dwell on this... and I've found something. Maybe it might help. This is hard to let out without fearing ridicule... safe places feel strange at first.
You are a flower, Roll. Only you just found out. We all are flowers. Like any flower, your journey from an indiscernible bud to a full bloom will take time.
As much as you might be in discomfort now, all the amazing things you are learning about yourself, the little and big discoveries will be amazing moments of growth I believe you will cherish when you look back over your story later.
Don't rush your bloom or you'll gloss over everything that will have been accumulating to make that moment truly beautiful, truly transitional.
Those photos that bother you right now, I believe you will see them differently in the future. Much like anyone looks back on their school photos and photos of lost loves. I used to hate the school photos, they showed how terrible I was, this thing kids hated and lost loves just filled me with sadness. Now they fill me with a kind of glowing nostalgia as I have worked through those past hurts and can more clearly see my journey for what it was. Each one an integral piece to my overall puzzle. I threw away a great many photos and writings frivilously, and I regret nearly all of it. Maybe put them away and lock them up to be found on some future rainy day, and see how you feel then when your a bit further down your path.
You were no less that beautiful feminine flower in that boysuit before. You just didnt know it, yet. You just needed the water of realization, acceptance, and bravery! All of those moments led you to here and to all the steps you take, little and large, from this day forward.
We dont get to have the same story as the people born with the right bodies but we are no less our souls intentions and our stories are just as filled with trials, tribulations, and triumphs! We're pioneers and our pioneer stories will and can be something for those who go after us and maybe they will have a better time. I hope they have a much easier and better time!
Youre becoming (physically), and its incredible!
Quote from: katiekatt on October 06, 2017, 05:10:14 PM
Roll,
Don't make hasty decisions!
Your post has given me pause to dwell on this... and I've found something. Maybe it might help. This is hard to let out without fearing ridicule... safe places feel strange at first.
First, thank you for your post, it was very touching!
When I first started posting here I had the same feeling. I've never been anywhere else that ridicule wasn't on the table, and being able to express my thoughts and feelings on such a sensitive topic has been so liberating. It's definitely strange (and pretty addicting too :D).
I am fortunate enough that my dysphoria (the recognition of which is still very new to me) is not extreme to the point of throwing away photos that matter (though I was certainly fast to delete the one that didn't), and I do hope in time I'll be able to bring the disparate parts of my life together in a way that I can accept the now (or rather, the future) without shame for the past. It's not an easy road unfortunately, and even if I didn't know why at the time I still felt that shame even as I lived through the past (in other words, I never liked looking at myself in photos and I never, ever voluntarily took them, there is actually very little photographic record of me for the past 20 years, maybe 10-15 pictures tops). But yet I do think that in the end my love for my family and the memories will win out. Whether I will be able to actively look at them or not, I know I can't truly discard them.