This is going to be a bit confusing, but I want to get this off my chest and see if anyone else has found something similar.

A couple of weeks ago I realised that dysphoria feels similar to me as being really cold all the time, and then I thought about it more and realised just how similar they are.  I was wondering whether other people have been able to make similar connections to things that other people might have experienced and can understand.  I don't think that I'd ever use the comparisons for anything, but it might be helpful if people wanted to try and explain it to a cis person in the future -- actually it might help to explain it to my mother if she tries to give me the "oh but I'm not girly and I don't feel like I'm a man!" rubbish again.

To explain what I mean a bit more, I live in a really cold house, it's got almost no heating in, so the only times that I actually feel properly warm over the last few months have been when I'm out of the house and at college/the pub, cuddled up in bed with my girlfriend or... well that's it.  I'm always trying to find ways to get warm and stop it being uncomfortable all the time, and it feels similar to dysphoria in how it's uncomfortable to me, not painful exactly, although it can get that way, but enough to want to do something drastic about it (i.e. go and sit in the oven, or attempt to rip parts of you off).  Both being cold and dysphoric make me want to curl up into the same little ball and cry until summer/I'm 18.  In both dysphoria and being cold the best thing we can do most of the time is to put loads and loads of clothes on.

I'm not sure if I've managed to explain that very well, but the feelings are the same, empty, agitated, painful and yearning for a time when it isn't around, and knowing that the brief spells when it doesn't affect you are going to end and it's going to be just as uncomfortable again, and the 'cures' are the similar, or the same, putting loads of clothes on, or getting cuddles.

Has anyone else got other things that you can relate to in a similar way, it doesn't have to be about dysphoria, could be any part of being trans that isn't always understood that's a little more imaginative than "a girl/boy trapped in a boy/girl's body", or "my body is a cage", because they don't really explain anything, or provide a helpful reference point.  Emotions are complicated, but sometimes they can be similar.

I feel pretty much the same way, but it wavers between the cold horrible feeling you described and a hot fire of rage that I have to struggle to restrain. You know, because people always say things like "Oh you're such a beautiful young lady" or "You have such a pretty name, why change it?" and other assorted phrases and then have no clue why those could possibly rub you the wrong way if you're obviously presenting male.

But yeah, I get that. And when it stops by being gendered the right way or finally not looking like a girl to myself for once, it's like a crack opening up in a sky constantly filled with storming wrath, spilling out golden sunshine until the maelstrom heals the wound I made in it. Kind of sucks to think about it.

The best way I try to explain being trans for me personally is that you have a 100 puzzle pieces and 99 of the pieces are of a rocket in space while the other piece is part of the sand at the beach.  The other 99 pieces fit but you are having a hard time fitting that sand piece in with the others.  Then you just say "screw it" and take a hammer and smash that piece in until it fits....but you make the surrounding pieces break apart in the process.  That's how my life is.  Because of that one piece that doesn't fit, yet it's there, the other pieces break apart.

You guys found very interesting ways to explain it. I explained it like what if one morning you wake up as the opposite gender, what it would feel like? It's not really relevant cause we feel dysphoria in our whole life but I guess the emotions would be almost the same. Desperation, identity confusion etc.

Quote from: Jared on February 21, 2013, 02:32:01 PM
You guys found very interesting ways to explain it. I explained it like what if one morning you wake up as the opposite gender, what it would feel like? It's not really relevant cause we feel dysphoria in our whole life but I guess the emotions would be almost the same. Desperation, identity confusion etc.

I've tried explaining it this way:
What if you woke up on another planet, surrounded by space aliens who said you were one of them when you knew you were human? What if there were humans on that planet who insisted you were an alien and treated you like one no matter what you said to them? What if you looked in the mirror and couldn't understand why you saw an alien instead of a human, and began to wonder if everyone else was right and it's all in your head, but the knowledge that they were wrong about who you were on the inside kept you from resigning to living out your life as an alien? What would you do?

Quote from: Liminal Stranger on February 21, 2013, 02:42:56 PM
I've tried explaining it this way:
What if you woke up on another planet, surrounded by space aliens who said you were one of them when you knew you were human? What if there were humans on that planet who insisted you were an alien and treated you like one no matter what you said to them? What if you looked in the mirror and couldn't understand why you saw an alien instead of a human, and began to wonder if everyone else was right and it's all in your head, but the knowledge that they were wrong about who you were on the inside kept you from resigning to living out your life as an alien? What would you do?

Yeah, that makes sense too. It's more similar to our situation than my explanation.

When I first came out and my mom was having a hard time, telling me things like "But you're really a girl" etc I just said "Picture yourself saying these things word-for-word to [my brother/her son]." Her response: "Well, that would be silly, why would I tell him those things? He's a boy." "Exactly" I can't believe that had any sort of affect but it did.

When thinking of myself as female my self image was always completely out of focus, now I see myself clearly and the image quality improves with every step of transition.

For me it just feels like this knot in my stomach, that just gets tighter and tighter. It's not painful exactly, but it's extremely uncomfortable, it makes you want to curl up in a ball and hide away from the world. Then every once in a while, when someone says or does something that touches on that knot in a bad way, it turns into a burning hot rage in my entire body. When someone touches on it in a good way like being correctly gendered, it's this warm pleasant feeling all over, and the knot dissolves for a little while.

The alien thing is such a good description. When I was little I actually did believe I was an alien for a period of time 

I usually go with something that someone can relate to. I ask them to think about something on their body that makes them really uncomfortable (weight, hair, nose, height, ect). Then I ask them to imagine if that's the only thing people ever noticed about them, they made it a point to constantly mention it, and all those people thought it was cool to constantly bring it up and that they should learn to accept it @_@. Then I tell them that what I go through is probably worse than that XP. That usually at least shuts them up. If not, then I make it a point to do exactly what I just described :'D! Did I mention that I have very few friends? :'P

This is the best explanation I've seen of what dysphoria feels like:

It's like having a paper cut.  It's there and you acknowledge it throughout the day.  You can wrap a band-aid around it and sure it stings but you have to get on with your day.  Then you touch a lemon and it hurts intensely.  There's really nothing you can do about the pain except to calm yourself down and try to do things that comfort you. 

I do it by intentionally misgendering the person for a bit, then saying "That was really annoying, wasn't it? That's how I feel.". And sometimes I say "If you woke up one day with a female body, wouldn't you be freaked out and want to fix it? That's what I feel every day.".

I have consistently found that comparisons are incredibly effective at evoking empathy.
here are some things i have said;

Feels like weaing someone else's wet bathing suit

imagine yourself, everything you think is exactly the same, but tomorrow you woke up with a (penis or vagina...whichever one is dysphoric for that person) how would you feel?

I had a family member who would not accept me for religios reasons, then she went through a difficult divorce. I asked her how she would feel if I continually referred to her as "my married aunt" and what if i continued to refer to her by her  husbands last name because i "didnt agree with her divorce" . She later told me that this was her turning point for accepting me.

I wrote a detailed blog post about this just a couple of months ago, in which I compared GD to feeling like you're born into a Chinese-American family (so you look Chinese but are culturally American) and then being forced to hang out with a group of actual Chinese people to whom you can't relate. You don't speak their language; you don't know the customs; you don't know how to 'be Chinese'... but because that's what you look like on the outside, society expects you to behave like an ordinary Chinese person. It's here, if you want to read it in detail: http://ftmdiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/hanging-with-chinese-tourists.html

A couple of days ago I used a different analogy: that gender is a bit like your appendix. Everyone is born with one but unless something goes wrong with it, you can quite easily go through your entire life without even noticing it's there. That's why cis people don't tend to notice their gender identity. We notice ours because it causes us pain.

Another good way of explaining GD to cis people is to ask them what they would say if they (as a little boy, for example) had been raised by their parents to be a girl because their parents really wanted a daughter instead of a son. Forced to wear dresses, given a girl's name, etc. etc. despite them knowing that they're a boy. I ask whether they agree that this would be very weird thing for parents to do; basically it would be child abuse, wouldn't it? Then I point out that that is exactly what my parents did to me...

I always tell people it's like having an itch you can't scratch or this constant feeling of claustrophobia that never goes away.