Do you think dysphoria is a big part of the problem when viewing yourself and your perception of how others perceive you. I guess I might be some what lucky that I get away with being viewed more feminine than masculine , but I know I don't always feel that way. I think dysphoria is a crippler that distorts ones perception.

When I'm feeling confident I see female, but when I'm having a bad day I see male. Other people as far as I know think I'm female.

I think you're right it distorts our self image but in BOTH directions.  Some times I think I look better than I do and sometimes I think I look bad but I don't.

As for the self image in our mind I'm awash of emotions and visions.  Some are good, some are poor.

I know when Ihave a good day I think My sister Greta Garbo looks like me

This is me on bad days

My mind has been caught in a timewarp. When I look in the mirror I see a twenty something putting on my sisters cloths while I'm baby sitting her kids. I see someone who did not reach their full potential due to the fear someone would find out. I see a person who carried a lot of hate, for a lot of years. I see a supermodel. I see a 65 year old transitioning whose youth escaped them and I desperately want it back. Oh yeah. Did I say I was delusional?

I have absolutely no concept of how I look to others. I would never post on a thread like "do I pass?" I wouldn't want to know if I don't. Then the dysphoria would take over and I would be a mess. Now I  can have some reasonable doubt that helps keep me sane. Well...close!
Monica

It almost certainly does affect my self-image compared to reality.

Some friends say I pass.  But, they are friends. 

I rarely get The Look in public, unless I am holding still for an extended inspectiion, such as sitting at a restaurant table, where I've infrequently had people look at me directly for minutes.  ("Oh, did I confuse your wittle bwain?  Awww..."). I have caught older men checking me out, which was frankly pretty creepy feeling, even if a sign of passing (or something...).

When I see myself in a mirror, all I see is that big nose and sometimes that chin.  When the dysphoria bites hard, it's a dude in the mirror, the sad old man returned.  I hate that.  Fortunately its becoming a rare event these days.

We're our own worst critics.  Dysphoria warps that into self-loathing.

Sometimes it's strange because my body proportions will change in the mirror. For instance my nose may seem bigger one hour and smaller the next. Same mirror, lighting and all that. It's really weird and I don't like it.

Quote from: HappyMoni on December 10, 2016, 08:44:59 PM
I have absolutely no concept of how I look to others. I would never post on a thread like "do I pass?" I wouldn't want to know if I don't. Then the dysphoria would take over and I would be a mess. Now I  can have some reasonable doubt that helps keep me sane. Well...close!
Monica

I feel exactly as you. I have never been missgenderd sins going full-time I'm not 100% it is because i pass 100% or if people are just being nice to me. Days when I am the happiest I do believe the former is true but when my mind is darker my thoughts on it drift towards the later of the two...   

It's odd, really. When I look in the mirror I see an attractive middle-aged woman and feel good about it. But, when I look at photos of myself, I often see an old man in a dress. If I let myself worry that the photos represent what the general public sees, I can have a pretty severe bout of depression.

As long as the mind is active with its own preconceived images and representations, the outside world (including oneself) will never be seen as it really is. Like looking through pink or blue glasses. That simple. This is the case with the great majority of human beings on this planet. A stranger seeing you for the first time sees you as you really are.

I wouldn't say so. I think it's looking at reality - trapped in the wrong flesh so to speak - that is what it is. You see what you know of as reality and what other people see as reality and it hurts because you know that it is reality and the options and understanding of it are limited out there.

I think trans people -far from being out of touch with reality as some people like to paint us - are painfully aware of reality and of our unique situations. Dysphoria doesn't so much warp our sense of reality as it hones down one's perception year by year to what we know MUST be the truth. We eliminate the other possibilities until we are left with the knowledge of what we are and weigh our options in both hands. I mean when I look around the boards I see people who are not hiding the truth of themselves but people acutely aware of all their physical attributes and comparing them honestly to the norm.

I don't think a trans person needs a mirror to know they are trans and to know what it is their soul looks like. I suppose for some it can always make one feel a bit inferior so long as there is any dysphoria but... on the whole I think trans people are quite honest about how they feel and how they look to themselves and not looking through eyes that aren't seeing right.

What we may do is have unrealistic expectations sometimes perhaps, but that isn't just a trans thing.

the question of the accuracy of perception or can we really know the objective world is an interesting discussion  , but I was more going to the point of whether our own  dysphoria  are glasses that we need to take off in order to find happiness in our transition.

We are influenced by our past impressions of us as males physically (memory imprints) so that these impressions overlap how we really look after HRT. Others from our past, still perceiving us as male and/or treating us as such, also are an important factor that contributes to our own self-perception. 

Quote from: KayXo on December 12, 2016, 01:08:26 PM
We are influenced by our past impressions of us as males physically (memory imprints) so that these impressions overlap how we really look after HRT. Others from our past, still perceiving us as male and/or treating us as such, also are an important factor that contributes to our own self-perception.

Which is why it's so important, I think, to have spaces where there isn't that baggage, where we can simply be who we are. 

But wherever we go, our mind follows us.

Quote from: T.K.G.W. on December 11, 2016, 06:06:19 PM
I wouldn't say so. I think it's looking at reality - trapped in the wrong flesh so to speak - that is what it is. You see what you know of as reality and what other people see as reality and it hurts because you know that it is reality and the options and understanding of it are limited out there.

I think trans people -far from being out of touch with reality as some people like to paint us - are painfully aware of reality and of our unique situations. Dysphoria doesn't so much warp our sense of reality as it hones down one's perception year by year to what we know MUST be the truth. We eliminate the other possibilities until we are left with the knowledge of what we are and weigh our options in both hands. I mean when I look around the boards I see people who are not hiding the truth of themselves but people acutely aware of all their physical attributes and comparing them honestly to the norm.

I don't think a trans person needs a mirror to know they are trans and to know what it is their soul looks like. I suppose for some it can always make one feel a bit inferior so long as there is any dysphoria but... on the whole I think trans people are quite honest about how they feel and how they look to themselves and not looking through eyes that aren't seeing right.

I think this hits it right on the head. For me, dysphoria seems like its always in the "on" position. Sometimes it can be ignored but something happens everyday to remind me. I personally didn't connect appearance, nor others perception of me to my feelings of wrongness until well after I knew there was a problem.

I would add to all this that physical appearance is the manifestation of what we want others to see within us. A CIS women is allowed to express her femininity at anytime, whereas a trans woman will be clocked and called out if her outer reflection doesn't match her inner beauty. Physical appearance, while also uplifting and comforting to us, allows other people to cope with us in a binary world.

The real question is if we remove certain components of dysphoric feelings that many of need just to feel ok, such as genitals, secondary sexual features, and hormone stability, would the need to fully present as a certain gender still exist? Would a trans man be able to wear a skirt if the feeling arose without being misgendered? Or a trans woman who didn't have to stress daily about her voice because society can accept that this is how she was built. Would a cisgender on either side be allowed to express feminine/masculine traits at will without being singled out? We are still very much engrained in the thought that there are male and female traits the are undesirable to be displayed in the "wrong" gender. What if these barriers were done away with? I think a larger part of the issue when thinking about how people perceive you is actually just a need to fit into your native culture. That is part of the human condition and something everyone deals with.

Quote from: KayXo on December 12, 2016, 02:52:25 PMBut wherever we go, our mind follows us.

"As one goes through it
one sees that the gate one went through
was the self that went through it
no one went through a gate
there was no gate to go through
no one ever found a gate
no one ever realized there was never a gate"

RD Laing's pithy piece on The Gate was put to me back when I was in the throes of transition, as I came to the position where I had to decide how I would go forward with my life.  There's a "letting go" required just to get into transition. 

Likewise, there's another "letting go" for getting out of it. 

Well my view of myself and that of others conflict so I guess so
I wonder if I will ever get a real view ....probably when I leave my mortal coil ....