Of course, it's going to be difficult to describe it in words, but I'd like to know more about what gender dysphoria specifically feels like (if you indeed consider yourself to suffer or have suffered from it).
Does it make you panicky?
Is it just a general, subtle, long-term depression? Or perhaps a deeper, more gripping depression?
Can you ever make it go away or feel it less by doing fun things?
Would you ever describe it as a long-term feeling of unhappiness/nagging feeling, or do you think gender dysphoria has to be something far more severe and painful than that?
Any specific examples would help.
I don't know. I don't know what it is to be without it, so I don't know how it would feel to a 'normal', non-gender dysphoric person.
I guess if I could sum it up - it would be like being born in a small prison cell and not knowing if there's a way out and feeling stuck there for life. You feel trapped and even everyday ordinary things you do inside the cell feel like you're dragging chains around while doing them.
And people see you, but the walls around you are invisible, so they can't see you're trapped and so you just seem really weird to them.
Basically, the main thought present in your head at all times is that you just want out and you see your life passing by and the grains of your time slipping right through your fingers. People are living. You watch them living and you want to run after them and catch up and live too. You just want to smash every clock you see and say 'wait. stop going! let me out. i want to live too. please don't run out of time before i get to live too.'
that's some of what I feel anyway.
Wow...
It's what Nero said. :P
Like culture shock.
If you've ever been in a foreign country where you don't know the customs and little particulars of life (how to get a ticket for the bus; that you need to slap a bar code on produce before you bring it to the register; that Friday is a national holiday and everything is closed), feel alone and just want to go home, and you're afraid to open your mouth and speak, because you're afraid you'll just make a fool of yourself and be immediately pegged as a pathetic clueless foreigner, and it's just not worth it, so you just shut up, and you just wish you could be as comfortable and at ease as that woman on the bus with the groceries and the fashionable scarf chatting with her friends ...
well, that's as close as anything else in my life has ever felt to gender dysphoria.
Hum, Well it feels normal as there was no other baseline to judge it from. But it was more a discomfort because things that came naturally to me, well everyone else thought was weird. Oh I ran like a girl, threw a ball like a girl, never quite got what it was guys were interested in. Being punished for playing with girl toys. I became very very shy because of it. Gee a 1000 different things where who I was did not fit with who everyone else saw. Actually quite hard growing up.
Now of course the exterior appearance matches the internal identification and well Life, is just so much easier now. no Culture Shock now, which is actually a pretty means to discribe what it seems like.
Beni
I agree with Nero. BTW, that was very deep and truthful.
In addition to Nero's statement:
I always feel very deeply depressed, and feel like nothing is worth it while I'm trapped in this invisible prison. Why should I try so hard to live in a world that doesn't care about me? All it does is lock me up, again and again. Although, somehow I manage to get up every morning and go to school. Maybe that's just because of the sheer monotony of it; I've been doing that my whole life, so I just keep my vicious cycle going.
Doing fun things makes it a little better, but I can never shake that depression that lurks just beyond my reach. I cry a lot, and get really angry a lot, too. I listen to music to get rid of that excess emotion. I listen to a LOT of music, and I always have. It saves me just a little bit, even if sometimes the theme of a song can make me feel worse.
Anyway, I think I'm done describing my emo life. One thing that really annoys me, though, is that my friends all know I'm depressed and 'emo', but none of them ever bother to ask why.
Loneliness and isolation. Swelling rage at everything that is opposite of how you feel about yourself. Being forced into a mold that isn't right.
I still fight against things that a male-oriented. But sometimes you are the only one to do what is required, so you become the Handywoman.
Janet
Quote from: Roxas on February 17, 2009, 10:57:44 PM
I always feel very deeply depressed, and feel like nothing is worth it while I'm trapped in this invisible prison. Why should I try so hard to live in a world that doesn't care about me? All it does is lock me up, again and again. Although, somehow I manage to get up every morning and go to school. Maybe that's just because of the sheer monotony of it; I've been doing that my whole life, so I just keep my vicious cycle going.
Were you confused about your depression? If so, for how long? At any point did you attribute your depression to not being able to act on your desire to be a different gender?
Assuming the answer to the above is "yes", what specific behaviors/thoughts/feelings rid you of the dysphoria, and how would you describe the sensation you feel/felt when the dysphoria lifts?
Quote from: Beni on February 17, 2009, 09:57:55 PM
Hum, Well it feels normal as there was no other baseline to judge it from. But it was more a discomfort because things that came naturally to me, well everyone else thought was weird. Oh I ran like a girl, threw a ball like a girl, never quite got what it was guys were interested in. Being punished for playing with girl toys. I became very very shy because of it. Gee a 1000 different things where who I was did not fit with who everyone else saw. Actually quite hard growing up.
I'm seeing this pattern come up a lot: the inability to understand what is was that the other boys were feeling, and a strong identification with other girls due to feeling very similar to them. This then leads a person to be in a sort of "limbo" where they don't fit in, which supports with the "culture shock" metaphor (you could literally call it "gender shock").
Was there ever a point where you tried to be male, internalized any masculine values, and felt horrible as a person as a result? Did the feeling that you female ever leave you?
And how would you describe your long-term emotional response to the world? Was it mild depression? Dissociation? Anger?
How did you cope with the feelings you always had?
I'm not sure who to blame. God? Mother nature? Myself? In any case I feel totally F***ED over.
Nero gave a good description of how I feel often times. The depression, loneliness and isolation described by Janet and others rings true for me also.
I just try to find something to be happy about most of the time and stay busy.
It's a black-and-white musical romantic comedy in which the ghost of Marilyn Monroe gets trapped in the body of Fred Astaire due to an ancient voodoo curse. The only way for Marilyn to escape is to seek out the help of a team of wise old witchdoctors who have the super secret spell to bring inner beauty to the outside.
There is lots of singing and dancing and fabulous costumes! ;)
And they all live happily ever after. YAY!
-Birdie
Quote from: Virginia Marie on February 18, 2009, 12:59:57 AM
I'm not sure who to blame. God? Mother nature? Myself? In any case I feel totally F***ED over.
Nero gave a good description of how I feel often times. The depression, loneliness and isolation described by Janet and others rings true for me also.
I just try to find something to be happy about most of the time and stay busy.
I feel like acceptance is better than blame, primarily because you cannot profit from blaming anything, but you can emotionally advance from acceptance. By acceptance, I mean that you cannot change the past, but in the moment you can simply accept the world as it is and strive to make a better future.
I've often felt screwed over, but I realize that, as an adult, it's up to me to gain the courage and skills necessary to shape my future into the way I want it to be.
Empowering my beliefs in this way help me to lift my dysphoric feelings a lot, as if where I am now doesn't matter, but rather, where I'm heading matters.
Hmm... well, for me, I guess the best analogy is like the rejection an organ after transplant surgery. Only it's my mind rejecting my body.
Most times it feels like I'm wearing a costume. A permanent costume that I can't take off. It's like... being in a play and playing the wrong part, having the wrong script and being unable to memorise the lines because they just don't make sense.
Depression... not so much, largely because I know that eventually I'm going to fix what's wrong. But sometimes it is frustrating... mostly that comes from the rest of the world's interaction, because they only see the role, not the person forced to play it. And when I step out of character inadvertantly, the results are... less than pleasant.
There's a fundamental dissociation, sometimes to the point where I look in the mirror and it takes several seconds before I recognise the reflection. Particularly after using introspection to explore my true identity. That can be very unnerving and confusing, and when accompanied by physical sensations that current anatomy dictates shouldn't actually be there (Phantom Female Syndrome, if you like)... that dissociation is reinforced to the point where I wonder if I'm losing my mind.
I don't hate my body. I just don't feel like it's mine. I dislike the fact that I'm stuck with it for the moment, but mostly I just don't feel the sense of integration... it's like I'm one of those Russian dolls, with me being stuck inside someone else, someone I don't recognise.
I Ashling, very good questions and thought behind your reasoning.
"but I'd like to know more about what gender dysphoria specifically feels like"
everyone has mentioned all accurate things about how it feels, I would add that for me I am tense all the time, I either grind or bite down on my teeth to the point that my teeth and jaw hurt, I think this is because I can not do anything about my dysphoria right now.
I do find like that by keeping busy in productive things I can calm down a bit, I keep so into things that I have become very good at many things, I have my own business and website and it does very well, I have license for shiatsu massage since 1986, I am an expert in several forms of martial arts, I am an expert on local trees and plants and I play the piano and compose, totaly self tought, and the list goes on. I am convinced if I did not have gender dysphoria then I would not have the mind to do all of these things the way I do, I am also married and I have 1 daughter and 1 grand daughter, my wife helps a lot with the way I feel sometimes, in what ever way she can.
"Does it make you panicky?
Is it just a general, subtle, long-term depression? Or perhaps a deeper, more gripping depression? "
I have had a few panic attacks but I can control that so far. I do experience depression and it varries in degrees of severity but one thing that is always there is the feeling that I am different on the inside, the outside does not match the inside, I and every time I see in my case a natural girl, I think that is me, or I could have been like that if not for my birth defect, but no one can see it and that creates conflict inside for me, some times it gets so bat that I do not want to work or anything.
"Can you ever make it go away or feel it less by doing fun things? "
For the most part I can not make it go away but I did experience a time that I became so happy from some things that had happened to me that I was distracted by that for a few days but only distracted, for the most part if I keep busy I can keep distracted too but I always feel the tence feeling in my jaws and sholders. I think it might get worst but I am trying to do things to keep it uder control, things like telling my wife last year and other things that allow me do have some feminine aspects in my life, I am also making arrangements to spend more time trying to relax and accept the fact that I am what I am and there is nothing wrong with that, it is infact a birth defect and nobodys fault. The more I seem to open up and be myself and to make goals then it gives me some reasons to relax, my rambling is done, aloha.
Tina
Hi
I like Nero's reply. In many ways he has hit the nail on the head. The isolation and the body prison. I hated the book and the movies of the 'Man in the Iron Mask', often felt it was for ime. The isolation, the lack of acceptance, the hate. All for ignorance.
And I don't identify as male so it is disrespect to identify me as one
As many of you know
For me the feelings were simply confusion and desperation, desperation at being "left behind".
From earliest childhood I thought I was a girl and I was quite happy. By age 8 I realized I had a problem, that my body wasn't right and people (adults) were trying to push be to "be like other boys" which I TOTALLY did not understand - I thought my body would be okay when puberty started. That didn't happen and the nagging annoyance started to turn to panic. The girls were going in one direction, boys in the other, and I was left stuck in the middle and that is NOT where I wanted to be. Then I was angry and scared. I was angry because no one would help me (doctors didn't know bugger all in those days) and I was scared because some people thought I was nuts (for claiming to be/should have been a girl).
My teens were rough. Away from home I often lived as a girl and that was great but around home where I was "supposed to be a boy", people thought I was a ->-bleeped-<- or at least "strange". By my 20's everything had kind of faded into hopelessness and I was on the verge of offing myself until a surgeon came along who rescued me and gave me a new life in 1974. After that everything was great. My new life fit like a comfy old slipper and everything fell into place as totally normal. That was 35 years ago.
I found Gender Dysphoria to a continuation of depressive episodes, which would last both longer and deeper everytime, until eventually it took over my life, my thoughts, my hopes and my dreams.
I thought about it during the day and cried about it during the night, every second, every minute of every hour of every day was like living a surreal existance. One in which I was trying to function live in a role that seemed alien to me, it was a times an existance trapped in a nightmare.
I was always depressed, shy, introverted and unable to make lasting relationships. My communication skills where poor, I could never understand boys, but afraid to talk to girls, simply because I was deeply jealous of them.
In truth it was simply a living nightmare, trapped in not only the wrong body, but the wrong life. As much as I tried to be happy and content, I knew I was lying to myself, family and friends and that denial hurt just as much as the GID that plauged me through out my life.
I once decsribed it to my best friend as waking up and being left handed, whereas I knew I was right handed, nothing feels right, things are awkard, you struggle on a daily basis to do the simple things and this leads to deep frustration.
8 years post op, all that pain and depression is a distant memory, no longer depressed, no longer introverted, confident, able to form relationships and communicate with people, no longer jealous and happy in my own body, living a life I can relate to.
Gender Dysphoria is a destroyer of souls, it eats away at the very being that you are not.
Rebecca
Everything just feel wrong, all the time. I feel mostly frustration, I can't do the things I want to do or even something as simple as wearing the clothes I want to wear. I panic about things that normal people don't even think twice about. Getting on a bus and going shopping is a huge ordeal for me, as is using the phone. I feel uncomfortable and awkward in this body and it projects onto everything else in my life.
For me it felt like I had all of these expectations I had to meet, but that I never truly could. It's a lot of stress to constantly turn over in your head all the learned subtleties of being something other than yourself. I would constantly be thinking about how I said things, what I said and when, how I sat, how I walked, what emotions I allowed through and when, what I wore, how I related to people, how people saw my body, and so on. I tried so hard to just be a normal boy, I just didn't understand why I had to, other than "that's what I'm supposed to be". The stress made me unstable, constantly panicked, depressed, and fearful. Thinking everyone was staring at me, judging me, and knowing it is all just an act.
And then there's the physical dysphoria, which for me is a wholly separate thing. I've learned to tune out a lot of that, but every day my body becomes less acceptable to me. Like it literally feels like certain things "feel" in the wrong place (like the sensation of a touch), or shouldn't have feeling at all. And I'm not sure if it's related, but I constantly bump into things, my theory is because my brain isn't wired to deal with how my body is actually structured. I hit my shoulders into door frames or people in crowded spaces all the time, at least I'm getting better at avoiding that and it isn't as distressing as the "why am I feeling that there?" feeling.
For me it's a mixture of free-floating anxiety, occasional panic attacks and frequent crying jags. I feel isolated, lonely, and misunderstood, and every day I think "maybe I should have been a girl" and/or "would I be happier as a woman?"
It never ends... It's a constant cacophony in my consciousness.
Wow, I don't think I've ever heard this question phrased this way on a forum before.
Quote from: Jeatyn on February 18, 2009, 07:16:14 AMEverything just felt wrong, all the time. I feel mostly frustration, I can't do the things I want to do or even something as simple as wearing the clothes I want to wear. I panic about things that normal people don't even think twice about. Getting on a bus and going shopping is a huge ordeal for me, as is using the phone. I feel uncomfortable and awkward in this body and it projects onto everything else in my life.
This is pretty close to what my life was like before transition. I can *really* relate to the overwhelming feeling of wrongness. The social dysphoria more or less disappeared after going full-time. And the major physical dysphoria was greatly lessened by 2 steps: 1.FFS-2005 2. SRS/BAS-2007. I still have minor physical issues, but I try to equate them with the physical issues that all women have.
I have no complaints. Life is good. :)
Quote from: MGKelly on February 18, 2009, 07:23:59 AM
For me it felt like I had all of these expectations I had to meet, but that I never truly could. It's a lot of stress to constantly turn over in your head all the learned subtleties of being something other than yourself. I would constantly be thinking about how I said things, what I said and when, how I sat, how I walked, what emotions I allowed through and when, what I wore, how I related to people, how people saw my body, and so on. I tried so hard to just be a normal boy, I just didn't understand why I had to, other than "that's what I'm supposed to be". The stress made me unstable, constantly panicked, depressed, and fearful. Thinking everyone was staring at me, judging me, and knowing it is all just an act.
This is an amazing description. In what ways did you cope with the stress from constantly being in this state? Did you deal with it mostly in your own private time? Did you crossdress in private (if you don't mind me asking)? Was it hard to find your own sense of private space when alone? Did you have people you could talk to about how you felt the whole time?
I'm learning so much just from reading everybody's stories in this thread. Wow.
For me dysphoria is a constant feeling of disconnect between my external and internal gender perception. Sometimes intense, sometimes barely noticeable, but always there in the background like static or machine noise.
I believe it manifests in my life as depression, isolation, physical stress and a pervasive sense of not really belonging. It makes me feel like crying just to type this.
Z
Quote from: Ashling on February 18, 2009, 12:33:04 AM
Were you confused about your depression? If so, for how long? At any point did you attribute your depression to not being able to act on your desire to be a different gender?
Assuming the answer to the above is "yes", what specific behaviors/thoughts/feelings rid you of the dysphoria, and how would you describe the sensation you feel/felt when the dysphoria lifts?
Sorry it took me so long to respond.
Before, when I didn't know I was transgender, and I was just a 'tomboy', I still felt depressed, but I didn't know why, so it didn't bother me that much (although I hated not knowing why). At that time, yes, it was confusing. I was like that for a long time, until I started my period, and then I finally realized that I was transgender and why I was depressed all the time.
Yes, it does seem to make me feel worse that I can't do anything about it. I'm totally stuck right now, and am trying to get into counciling, so maybe I can get somewhere. But mostly, I just feel horrible because I can never be just a regular guy. Even after I transition, I'll still be different. And that really bothers me. I keep thinking, "Why me? What could I possibly have done to deserve this?"
I feel the best when I can hang out with my guy friends at school, because I feel like I belong. Also, just when I'm having fun in general; maybe I'm bowling with my family, or playing video games with my dad, or something else. It distracts you a little bit, and moves the spotlight to a different topic for a little while. As to what it feels like, I really don't know. It just kinda transitions naturally into you feeling a little better, until you realize that, and then you feel worse again.
I hope that answers your questions.
Also, I wanted to add a few things. I, too, have panic attacks. It always comes as a pain in my chest, clustered around my heart. So it gives the presence like my heart is literally aching from all the pain. It comes very suddenly, but I almost always know what the trigger was. And it doesn't last very long; about 30 sec - 1 minute. It starts out suddenly, then fades until it's gone.
Quote from: Leiandra on February 18, 2009, 01:46:16 AM
Most times it feels like I'm wearing a costume. A permanent costume that I can't take off. It's like... being in a play and playing the wrong part, having the wrong script and being unable to memorize the lines because they just don't make sense.
That is exactly how I feel. I have been depressed about it forever, since puberty is the earliest I remember being depressed. My depression has practically gone away since I have started to make progress in transition, as well as anti-depressants. The anti-depressants alone didn't do it though, they just lifted my mood, but still left me feeling depressed (if that makes sense). What made me not depressed was the progress.
Imagine you are yourself, but you are trapped in the body of a retard, so you are unable to show how smart and wonderful a person you really are, because everything that comes out sounds... erm... retarded. Now imagine that everyone treats retarded people like dirt, calls them freaks and pushes them around. You want to cry out to others that you want to do what they are doing, you want them you know you, but you can't. Everytime you try to explain it, people just pat you on the back and say "Of course you are dear, of course you are." but you can tell that they don't take you seriously. You are so mad at those people for abandoning you as one of their own, but you can't express it, because people hate you or don't take you seriously. So all you can do is cry inside, every time you see somebody having fun like normal human beings, and every time you realise what's wrong with you. 'course you always know what's wrong with you in the back of your mind, so you have never really been happy.
*sigh* Stupid girls leaving me here to rot. I really am a girl, but damn bitches only mock me... :'(
Quote from: Heartwood on February 18, 2009, 08:13:37 PM
Imagine you are yourself, but you are trapped in the body of a retard, so you are unable to show how smart and wonderful a person you really are, because everything that comes out sounds... erm... retarded. Now imagine that everyone treats retarded people like dirt, calls them freaks and pushes them around. You want to cry out to others that you want to do what they are doing, you want them you know you, but you can't. Everytime you try to explain it, people just pat you on the back and say "Of course you are dear, of course you are." but you can tell that they don't take you seriously. You are so mad at those people for abandoning you as one of their own, but you can't express it, because people hate you or don't take you seriously. So all you can do is cry inside, every time you see somebody having fun like normal human beings, and every time you realise what's wrong with you. 'course you always know what's wrong with you in the back of your mind, so you have never really been happy.
*sigh* Stupid girls leaving me here to rot. I really am a girl, but damn bitches only mock me... :'(
Imagine if you came to terms with the fact that you're retarded on the outside but knew you weren't on the inside. But then over the course of 9-10 years, you actually became retarded. And you could only barely remember what it was like to not be retarded. You're so retarded you can't even fantasize about not being retarded on the outside. One day, you pick up a book and suddenly you realize that you're not only still externally retarded, but that you came to believe it.
That's prettymuch what I'm going through right now, although it's not as bad as it sounds because I have insane cognitive intellect, and absolute zero emotional intellect. I think I am literally emotionally retarded. I'm being as honest and un-dramatic as I can be, but when i read what I'm writing it makes me glad I'm FINALLY seeing a therapist. Just to even pick up the phone and talk to the receptionist, it took me a good month.
It's gonna be a long journey...
Quote from: Ashling on February 18, 2009, 12:14:52 PM
This is an amazing description. In what ways did you cope with the stress from constantly being in this state? Did you deal with it mostly in your own private time? Did you crossdress in private (if you don't mind me asking)? Was it hard to find your own sense of private space when alone? Did you have people you could talk to about how you felt the whole time?
I'm learning so much just from reading everybody's stories in this thread. Wow.
I'm glad I put it in a way that made some kind of sense. Like how do you describe what it is to experience a specific gender? We're talking in some pretty abstract concepts, I wouldn't ever expect someone who hasn't had the experience of living in the wrong identity to understand. There isn't one thing you can point to and say "oh, yep, I must be trans" you just feel it.
I didn't cope. I struggled to figure out how to be a guy until I was 17, that's when I think I learned how to pull it off convincingly. Until then I was constantly verbally, physically, and emotionally harassed for not fitting in. By 20 I hated myself so intensely that I totally withdrew from everyone and everything, I completely shut down emotionally and socially. I resigned myself to living out the rest of my life like that, just going through the motions, more like merely existing than actually living.
I "crossdressed" rarely (though if you want to nitpick, being in boy-mode is crossdressing). I mean it's not about clothes. It's about my social relationships with the rest of the world, and about my body. In the sense that clothing is gendered, it makes me feel more confident of myself if I look like other women, and less confident of myself when I look more visibly male.
So much of my pain was over boxing up such a core part of me and trying to hide it, and it was worse that in order to hide that part of me, that so many other parts of my personality also had to be hidden. I don't think there was any way to truly cope, for me. I hit a point where I realized I would never have a life unless I started to be myself.
Even though I'm still at the beginning stages of my transition, pre-HRT for another couple weeks at least, I have started to be more myself and everyone has noticed how much happier I am. Feeling genuinely happy about who I am is a wonderful feeling, no matter how anyone chooses to treat me for being trans,
no one can take away that
I am happy about me.
Quote from: Zythyra on February 18, 2009, 12:29:40 PM
For me dysphoria is a constant feeling of disconnect between my external and internal gender perception.
What it is that causes your external gender perception? Is it primarily the way people treat you? The way you look on the outside?
And what is the "core" of your internal gender perception? Would you describe it as some kind of unshakeable knowledge or a belief (much in the same way that I believe I'm a human being that is breathing right now)? Or does it somehow rest on some kind of emotion, or perhaps the fact that you feel so incongruent with you external environment? Does your internal gender perception ever vary with time or with activities (i.e. you sometimes doubt it, or it sometimes goes away)?
I ask primarily because I don't really have an internal gender perception. I know it sounds odd, but basically it's like this: when I'm emotionally in touch with myself and not "performing" for the external world, I see myself as female when I look in the mirror (basically, in my own room right now, but increasingly in the outside world). But there's nothing underlying that - I've never felt like there was a "self" inside of me that was somehow different from peoples' perceptions of me. To clarify, I've always felt that my "identity" was something external (the way I look), and that ME, the PERSON, was my thoughts, feelings, and the way I wanted to relate to the world. I've always wanted to dress act (BEHAVE) female my entire life, but never felt safe or secure enough to do it. As a result, I've been either depressed, addicted, or dissociated in order to deal with the mind-wracking emotional pain of not being able to express what's inside on the outside.
Quote from: Ashling on February 18, 2009, 08:58:43 PM
What it is that causes your external gender perception? Is it primarily the way people treat you? The way you look on the outside?
And what is the "core" of your internal gender perception? Would you describe it as some kind of unshakeable knowledge or a belief (much in the same way that I believe I'm a human being that is breathing right now)? Or does it somehow rest on some kind of emotion, or perhaps the fact that you feel so incongruent with you external environment? Does your internal gender perception ever vary with time or with activities (i.e. you sometimes doubt it, or it sometimes goes away)?
Good question Ashling! It's an unshakable belief that I am not male. It has been 15 years since the first time I transitioned and then later retransitioned. I was happier living as a woman than I am as male, however I really don't feel myself to be either gender.
When I am playing music (as well as some other things), my gender doesn't really matter at all. Thank Goddess for music, I don't know where i'd be without it, probably pacing the hallways on the psych ward :P
Z
Quote from: Nero on February 17, 2009, 08:25:53 PM
I don't know. I don't know what it is to be without it, so I don't know how it would feel to a 'normal', non-gender dysphoric person.
I guess if I could sum it up - it would be like being born in a small prison cell and not knowing if there's a way out and feeling stuck there for life. You feel trapped and even everyday ordinary things you do inside the cell feel like you're dragging chains around while doing them.
And people see you, but the walls around you are invisible, so they can't see you're trapped and so you just seem really weird to them.
Basically, the main thought present in your head at all times is that you just want out and you see your life passing by and the grains of your time slipping right through your fingers. People are living. You watch them living and you want to run after them and catch up and live too. You just want to smash every clock you see and say 'wait. stop going! let me out. i want to live too. please don't run out of time before i get to live too.'
that's some of what I feel anyway.
:icon_blink: Wow, yeah. That's it exactly.
Quote from: Heartwood on February 18, 2009, 08:13:37 PM
Imagine you are yourself, but you are trapped in the body of a retard, so you are unable to show how smart and wonderful a person you really are, because everything that comes out sounds... erm... retarded. Now imagine that everyone treats retarded people like dirt, calls them freaks and pushes them around. You want to cry out to others that you want to do what they are doing, you want them you know you, but you can't. Everytime you try to explain it, people just pat you on the back and say "Of course you are dear, of course you are." but you can tell that they don't take you seriously. You are so mad at those people for abandoning you as one of their own, but you can't express it, because people hate you or don't take you seriously. So all you can do is cry inside, every time you see somebody having fun like normal human beings, and every time you realise what's wrong with you. 'course you always know what's wrong with you in the back of your mind, so you have never really been happy.
*sigh* Stupid girls leaving me here to rot. I really am a girl, but damn bitches only mock me... :'(
Same here for me. I just don't *do* the male thing right, and i'm not physically a girl so I don't fit in with them either. It's a intense sense of being alone and on my own in this world even though there are people around me that love me. I've always been alone in my life, and as a young boy I got picked on pretty hard. So when I grew up I pursued solitary things, and picked a occupation where I could work alone.
So i'd say its a sense of being......... alone and excluded.
An outcast even among outcasts, a hell far worse than death, to be consumed with a fire undying, and a sense of dark loneliness. To desire to see everything around you disappear just so you can be set free. To wish death not only upon those around you but yourself as well each and every waking second. A nightmare you can't escape whither you sleep or wake. That to me is Gender Dysphoria. Unfortunate however my anger issues just seem to be getting worse...
How does gender dysphoria feel?
Normal
Wow. There are a lot of great descriptions going here. I've identified with so many of them. I suppose the analogy I've always thought of was getting home from the Chinese take away and discovering you've gotten somebody else's dinner. And they ordered from the vegetarian menu. Blech. :icon_weee: Only, of course, it's not just one dinner that's ruined, it's your whole friggin' life.
The same as it did yesterday and the same it did the day before. It felt the same as the year before and same the last ten years before that..
and it felt the same 20 years ago when I had my diagnosis
Quote from: Jamie-o on February 25, 2009, 05:30:29 PM
Wow. There are a lot of great descriptions going here. I've identified with so many of them. I suppose the analogy I've always thought of was getting home from the Chinese take away and discovering you've gotten somebody else's dinner. And they ordered from the vegetarian menu. Blech. :icon_weee: Only, of course, it's not just one dinner that's ruined, it's your whole friggin' life.
Oh, that's mine.
Quote from: Ashling on February 18, 2009, 08:58:43 PM
And what is the "core" of your internal gender perception? Would you describe it as some kind of unshakeable knowledge or a belief.....
That is exactly what it was like for me. I don't really know HOW I knew but I always knew (from before earliest memory) I was a girl. It took 8 years for anyone to put a crack in that certainty, which led to 12 years of questions and uncertainty. (Followed by 35 years of knowing for sure :) )
So many great replies that reflect my own feelings. I was going to add to it, but I'd just be rambling. Besides, my coaster is teetering a bit and I'd really like for it to hang where it is for awhile. Still, very interesting replies...
I'm going to take Gender Dysphoria to mean how one feels in a situation (which may be ongoing, such as life itself), where one feels that internal and external gender don't match.
For me there is a very specific physical feeling that I get whenever I'm feeling strongly dysphoric. It's kind of like a burning and nagging but at the same time pleasurable feeling that I feel in my bones, such as legs and arms, but also particularly strongly in my lower abdomen, where I imagine my uterus/vagina should/would be. It's sort of similar to how sexual arousal feels, except it's not sexual, and it's also 'tingly'. It's also kind of painful. This might be because at the moment, the situation usually is like so: I want to do/be this thing that is female and feels so right for me, but right now it's not an option, just a fantasy.
But it's becoming less fantasy as the days go on...
Dysphoria is a general feeling of discomfort or ill being. Anxiety also. Probably if your comfortable with yourself (gender) then ther is no dysphoria. Once I was told I was gender dysphoric. Another therapist told me no. As long as a person is comfortable their gender it can not be dysphoria. Accepting androgyny will ensure a person can't be gender dysphoric.
How does it feel?
When I was young it drove me crazy; guilt, anguish and the desire to totally transition dominated my life. The world seemed binary to me, black and white, male and female and so on.
Now many years on I'm happy where I am, I enjoy be transgendered both socially and sexually. With time I've even reconciled being Muslim with my situation and going back to my religion I met my lovely (lesbian) wife. Her family accepted her and they accepted me, what more could I ask.
Quote from: imaz on February 27, 2009, 10:43:23 AM
How does it feel?
When I was young it drove me crazy; guilt, anguish and the desire to totally transition dominated my life. The world seemed binary to me, black and white, male and female and so on.
Now many years on I'm happy where I am, I enjoy be transgendered both socially and sexually. With time I've even reconciled being Muslim with my situation and going back to my religion I met my lovely (lesbian) wife. Her family accepted her and they accepted me, what more could I ask.
I can relate to a lot of what imaz has posted
Quote from: Naturally Blonde on February 25, 2009, 04:16:22 PM
How does gender dysphoria feel?
Normal
But it certainly wasn't normal for me, anything but normal.
When I look back the early years of my life was the worse, the bullying and the torment, as I approach my teen years and puberty started I just couldn'd take anymore, I came out to my parents when I was 16, they where fully surpportive when I started my transition, my only regret I didn't come out sooner, Iv read a lot lately about transgender children, well I believe I was a transgender child, if I'd known then what I know now my parents would have rared me as a girl, I would have been a happier child if I had just been a girl doing girly things.
Anyway as my transition progressed the more content and happier I became, I was lucky I started young, 24years after srs, Iv never been happier, I love being woman, just being a complete female.
p
Quote from: Genevieve Swann on February 27, 2009, 09:54:49 AM
Dysphoria is a general feeling of discomfort or ill being. Anxiety also. Probably if your comfortable with yourself (gender) then there is no dysphoria. Once I was told I was gender dysphoric. Another therapist told me no. As long as a person is comfortable their gender it can not be dysphoria. Accepting androgyny will ensure a person can't be gender dysphoric.
Easier said then done. Transsexual people don't want to be androgynous, they want to be the woman (or man) they should have been. The dysphoria will not lessen until their goal is achieved. Going full-time was BIG, but my body dysphoria was only fixed with SRS.
edit: Maybe you're referring to compartmentalization? That's a coping mechanism people use for different reasons. For example: My kids. I lost all contact with my kids because of divorce. I have no idea what they've been doing the last 6 years. I have no idea what they look like. My ex is a brick wall. I deal with it by compartmentalization. That is I think about it as little as possible because of the pain it causes. The issue is STILL there, I just choose not to think about it. This coping mechanism can be used for dysphoria, but make no mistake the dysphoria is NOT gone, just hidden.
edit: Please don't suggest legal action because I've already consulted a lawyer. The divorce agreement is pretty ironclad. I was naive and stupid 6 years ago and I have to live with it.
IMO you'll get past all that.
Time is a great healer, enjoy who you are, look on the bright side.
We are all unique, being different is a blessing in many ways and there are many people out there who will love you for who you are.
It will get better believe me. The most important thing is to learn to love and accept oneself.
Quote from: Jeatyn on February 18, 2009, 07:16:14 AM
Everything just feel wrong, all the time. I feel mostly frustration, I can't do the things I want to do or even something as simple as wearing the clothes I want to wear. I panic about things that normal people don't even think twice about. Getting on a bus and going shopping is a huge ordeal for me, as is using the phone. I feel uncomfortable and awkward in this body and it projects onto everything else in my life.
Huh. This sounds about right.
I've been in doubt that what I feel is dysphoria, but this confirms it for me. So thank you.
For me it feels like standing in one spot being pulled 2 directions. Logically being born male I should do this but yet at the same time I think more like a female. So I tried to fit in the middle and find some balance. As it sits now that balance is failing in that now I am leaning or rather admitting to myself that I do have a female side even more then male but then I got depressed that well what am I about to become. However accepting who I am has lessened the anxiety in ways now I can not stop thinking about it. As for fitting in I do not I never was interested in what males think/do yet interested in what girls think/do. Since I am currently male I just don't fit but hoping that hrt will shed some light as to what direction I am about to head yet also realising it is not the total answer but a push if you will to finding m true self that I have buried for a long time.
Fyi in my 40s and pre hrt so my experience with that are nil save I tried herbs once and felt a instance of I think euphoria. It was very short and do not advise herbs just to weak with a lot of extra junk that can really hurt you. The way I look at this is a road in my life and to learn from it however it goes. This next road may cover some of my old paths but will still have memories of those old roads. Time to move forward:)
Edit: Just something to add the feeling it now feels like a choice yet not really like my destiny or fate is nagging me to follow a new path so that I am no longer stuck in the mud of the current road.
I know other have said this too, but I always felt like I'd studied for a particular part in a play only to discover that I had to take the part of someone else. And as stumbled about trying to fulfill this unfamiliar role everything I did only served to confirm that something was very wrong.
For me it is very difficult to describe because for so long I was able to repress it (or compartmentalize as Beyond said) or so I thought. I fought depression for most of my life and couldn't understand why I was depressed and why I hated my life and wanted to die.
On the surface, to the outside world I was generally seen as a handsome, witty and intelligent. I was married and had 4 kids that kept me very busy. On the inside I was a frightened individual who doubted themself and was unhappy with most everything in my life.
When I was young I had a lot of friends that were girls and I enjoyed playing with them and doing girl things. I remember being teased by the other boys and feeling different. I cross dressed and longed to be a girl and prayed I would wake up one morning as one. I couldn't tell anyone my feelings, not even my mother who had said she was sure she was having a girl because her pregnancy with me was so much different than it was with my older brother.
I was depressed and contemplated killing myself a lot and actually almost carried it out a number of times. Somehow I was not able to put 2+ 2 together and figure out that the source of my depression was my trans status. I wanted to be anything but trans and so I wrote off the occasional cross dressing episodes as being deviant sexual behavior and loathed myself for giving into the behavior. I was able to convince myself that if I threw away the objects that were part of that deviant behavior I could get myself back under control and be the normal guy I was susposed to be. Then the depression would set in again.
The thing is I had no idea it was gender dysphoria that was the actual problem. I thought the symptoms were the problem. So for most of my adult life I was in a state of denial and not even aware of what was causing my problems. When my latest episode of feeling a compulsion to cross dress arrived, it arrived with a vengeance. There was no denying the sense of feeling alive when I got dressed up. I had no idea that there were breast forms you could attach to yourself. The first time I was able to get dressed up in a wig, forms clothes and shoes it felt so right. I knew as soon as I felt the forms attached to me that I was finally feeling what it was like to be normal. I knew I could not live unless I was going to be able to have my body changed and have my own natural breasts.
That was fairly recently. Once I came to the realization that I was trans and discovered that it was only going to accelerate and get worse as I aged, I knew I would be transitioning. In the course of the last six months I have come to the realization of my status, begun therapy and hormone treatments and began the legal process to change my name and gender. Next Friday my name and gender will be changed and next month I will be living and working as my true self.
So for me gender dysphoria has been like living in this big dark cloud but not knowing why you are in that cloud and not having the ability to try to shed light on it because you didn't realize what cloud you were in. It was a dark and lonely place that I kept hidden from everyone, myself included. To make up for that I became very good pretending to be someone I thought everyone wanted me to be.
I am glad to have finally been given a flashlight and I see the path out of this cold dark and lonely place and I am getting to find that I do like this life and I am important to some people.
Part of how you feel depends on your personality. Some seem to take it better than others. Until fifth grade, I felt disappointed if my parents wouldn't let me get some sterotypical toy, like a GI Joe or BB gun, although they wouldn't let my brothers either, it was more of a violence thing. I did, however feel extremely humiliated if I had to wear a dress for some reason. After fifth grade when the boys broke off from the girls for puberty, I felt lost, depressed and eventually suicidal. There was no where to fit in, so i just tried to be invisible. It was much like living in a bubble where I could see out, but no one could see in, so I stopped looking out.
sam1234
Quote from: Naturally Blonde on February 25, 2009, 04:16:22 PM
How does gender dysphoria feel?
Normal
LOL! Great answer.
Here's an example of how this plays out. My therapist insisted on sorting out depression (among other issues) before diving into anything sex or gender related. My response? I was resistant and concerned! After all, I KNOW how to function while depressed (I'm bipolar), but have no idea how to live without it!
i dont experience dysphoria all that much which is strange. i really dont have a problem with the boy bits though i will in the next few years get SRS. i guess its because i dont want to forget who i am. being a boy is as much important to me as wanting to live my life asthe girl i know myself to be. i'm grateful for who i am and i accept myself and all my perfect imperfections so i guess thats why i never really experienced dysphoria beyond the level of discomfort
My dysphoria now mainly circles around the genitals and really is brought to the surface everytime electro is done down there where the feelings of disgust and repulsion rise.
Mariah
For me,
Mass confusion. Like being stuck on a fence where part of you is tugging in one direction and another part is tugging in another. It's hard to deal with all that tugging and I just want to make a decision, but I'm afraid that I'll still feel that tugging no matter which side I lean towards. I do have a strong body dysphoria though, so I'm currently thinking that I need to go through a full transition while still being free to cross between the gender divide. That may change though. The more I accept myself, the less confusion is present. I've also never been a dress girl, but I asked my girlfriend last night to go dress shopping with me. So for all I know I could end up being a girly girl once I have full acceptance of myself.
Quote from: Sephirah on February 18, 2009, 01:46:16 AM
Most times it feels like I'm wearing a costume. A permanent costume that I can't take off. It's like... being in a play and playing the wrong part, having the wrong script and being unable to memorise the lines because they just don't make sense...
...But sometimes it is frustrating... mostly that comes from the rest of the world's interaction, because they only see the role, not the person forced to play it....
...There's a fundamental dissociation, sometimes to the point where I look in the mirror and it takes several seconds before I recognise the reflection.
Nero put it beautifully back at the start of this thread but this post, also from the first page, literally took the words from my mouth. I wrote this in journals back when I first knew, had started to accept it, but decided to try and hide it. These thoughts haunted me for years.
I identify with almost every post in this thread. At some point from my earliest pre memory confusion (stories and photographs confirm what I have known for as long as I can remember) through years of torture until now, I have felt what you all have felt. The couple of posts about post srs dysphoria give me hope. It realy has felt like torture and left me feeling like such a fraud. I haven't felt like a real person for so long. Before self acceptance I was exhausted, just spent. Every silent moment was haunted with dysphoric pain. My life seemed to hurt and everyone else seemed to live so easily. Whatever their bodily problems. And I saw the people like me who were brave enough to step into the light get mocked, time and time again. I was an out going little kid, now I am terrified of even the slightest socializing. But I am healing, it is getting better. Going full time helped a ton. Coming out to everyone I know was the first time I realy stood up for myself. HRT makes me feel more like myself every day. Dysphoria still drives me to tears at times but I can combat it faster, because I am free to be me. I can recognize the woman in the mirror.
The words of a transman in a TV documentary I saw in my last day before self acceptance will stick with me forever. I re played the segment over and over and I will credit him with giving me the courage to accept myself and take the plunge. To be me. I wish I knew his name but it was the show Taboo (I know, its awful but this one was ok). The words he spoke are burned on my mind...
"...I didn't know it was possible to be this comfortable and be alive."
After a horrendous and alienating childhood and an adulthood shattered by the pain of the closet I felt I had to take the chance. What did I have to lose?
Reading this thread today ( I spent my lunch break bawling while reading it) has been powerfully cathartic. Thank you everyone for sharing!