Hey all,
For the last several months, I have been so dysphoric about my body that it's becoming debilitating. I spent all day in bed for the past two days instead of taking the time to do things that I needed to do because I couldn't bring myself to get up.
Does anyone have any tips, tricks, or resources that help when you're dysphoric? Anything that helps and furthers you in your day would be helpful. I can't afford to be taking a lot of mental health days in the next semester because of the responsibilities I have within my university and the bills I need to pay.
You have two tools available to you. The first is distraction. Keep yourself busy doing what needs to be done and when you have free time, find other activities to distract you. It can be hobbies, friends, music, movies or games but whatever works for you. The second is do the things you can to forward your transition. The transition requires multiple steps so knocking off a few of the steps will give you a feeling of accomplishment and calm the dysphoria for a while.
Depend what your issue is. If it's general body shape you can get in good shape and build muscles to take the edge off, bind etc. If it's organs I wouldn't know what to advise except avoiding thinking about them until you have the means to do something about them. It helps to work on building up mental defenses and an ability to "switch off" thoughts you know are going to lead you down a bad road. It took a while but I finally mastered that ability and that's my main dysphoria killer. It basically starts with saying to yourself, I know when I start thinking about x, y or z this isn't helping me and so I'm not going to do it. I will get to my goal in the end but I am not going to submit to these thoughts, etc. So crazy simple for years I mocked the idea thinking it could never actually work.