I want to know if anyone else experiences depression and gender identity the way that I do, and if it's a type of dysphoria or simply depression, or wishful thinking, or what?

I know that at the end of the day only I can figure out what is going on for me, and that this is also a conversation for me and my therapist, it is certainly an on-going one with my therapist. I'm looking to see if anyone else has experiences like this, and maybe what it meant for them down the road.


First, depression:

My whole life I've dealt with a very intense fight/flight response in certain social situations which I guess is social anxiety (though I like people, and prefer to be around people), this was often followed by a round of depression for a few hours. I could also get depression from other triggers, most often my depression was triggered by something to do with women, which for the longest time I thought was about feelings of inadequacy (I'm biologically male, am attracted to women). I've always felt like I related to women better but also felt guilty about it as though I don't deserve to because I was born male. Through my 20s this random depression would come and go usually in a matter of hours up to a few days. I learned to deal with it, though it would always hold me back in social situations.

After I started questioning my gender identity I noticed a change in depression, how it affects me. It feels less gripping, more textural. Sometimes when I dress feminine in subtle ways it does reverse it a little bit. I don't know if gender issues are the cause of it or not. I'm wondering, could depression be caused by gender identity and one not know at all that gender identity is the cause? Is that a thing that happens? Is that what dysphoria is for some people? Or is this just a correlation without causation?


Second, gender identity:

I've always had these little moments of elation or zen in my life, it could be due to success on a project or simply hearing a good song on the radio. During those moments is when I've always felt secretly feminine in my head, as though something shifts in my self-image. Since I started questioning I've noticed that I feel like I'm female most often when I'm happy, and less when I'm stressed or sad or angry. When I'm relaxed, calm, happy, or excited, my self-image crystallizes to see a female-bodied somewhat gender queer tom-by lesbian women walking in my place, that's me. I usually get a little happier when I think about it, and I find it harder to think myself as female about when I'm sad or upset.

Is this anything like anyone else's experience? Is this a way that (some) trans people experience things?

I have to admit this is something I think about too. A new member at the trans group I attend asked what dysphoria was...

Presuming what I suffer is dysphoria then it manifests itself differently... and I am still waiting to see a professional to confirm it one way or the other.

From what I can remember in my childhood, it felt like an overwhelming desire to be female. Like an ache in the gut/heart. A sense of envy. But it would be so overwhelming that it would just consume me. 

As a teenager, this slowly ate at me during puberty and the desire would make me take a knife to myself several times but I could never follow through. I tried to tattoo down there too several times with a compass and ink... thankfully those attempts failed. I tried to tattoo the female symbol and 'I am a girl'.

In my late teens, I tried to butch up and took up weight lifting. That made it much worse. I had a very good friend who was bisexual female and she would do my hair for me (I had long hair then) and experiment with make up. We had a falling out and that bit of feminine release and losing a friend sent me into deep despair and depression. To the point where I was going to just end it all. If I couldn't be female then I had no point in continuing and if I couldn't have my friend who helped me, what was the point? 

Thankfully, I was rescued by some people who were deeply concerned about me and slowly pulled myself back together but I had messed up my education in the process.

Then the overwhelming desire again into my early 20s.

During this period I had opportunity for release in dressing and the depression was offset by periods of elation when dressed.

In my late 20s and into my 30s, I started dating a series of bisexual women who treated mostly female and that was great release. So my 'dysphoria' wasn't so strong then. Eventually met my wife and she would buy me bits and bobs and we would play about similar to the girl I knew in my teens. My wife didn't want me to dress anymore, insisted I grew a beard (to stop me dressing), and I tried to be a man for her for the last 8-9 years. Stopped dressing completely.

I sank more and more into depression. Became more and more withdrawn. Stopped speaking to my wife. She ended our sex life before then. Started having anxiety attacks but these were as much about everything else that was happening in my life and the 'dysphoria' just added to the top.

Then the dysphoria changed. I started getting very stressed and agitated at things that 'forced' me to identify as male and the 'need' to hide who I was, to keep the Big Secret. I felt it building up in me... the pressure and I knew it was going to be bad, so I reached out for help and was left. Then it came crashing down on me. Years of suppression... I just couldn't hold it in anymore. It felt like my sides were splitting apart. I couldn't stop crying. I was both physically shaking, and when that stopped, I could feel my flesh under my skin shivering. My emotions were bouncing all over the place, from amazing elation where I could not stop laughing to deep despair in minutes. This lasted for over a month. It still happens but since joining the trans group and exploring myself more, the feelings are becoming a little less intense but still bouncing.

My dysphoria worsened too. I see a woman whose style I like and suddenly I find myself in a pit of despair that I am not a woman and the tears will start rolling. Someone calls me my male name and it feels like a bit of me has died. Same if someone refers to me as 'dude' 'mr' or any other male identifying mark, the most painful is 'daddy'. It causes me both stress, anxiety and depression... although the latter two are not to the same intensity as when other factors come into play. Two weeks ago I had my first bad bathroom experience. It wasn't that I wanted to use the women's toilets because I am not presenting female, it was just the sense of depression at being identified male. Getting dressed in male clothes is causing mild depression too, because it is identifying me as male. As is body hair. The thing is that when I do something feminine, I feel elated but when I go back to being male, it makes it more difficult and the depression sets in. So sometimes I wonder if I should be exploring my feminine again because it makes going back to be male much more difficult... but I know that I can't not proceed. The thought of having to live with another collapse like 2 months ago is too painful to consider.

The shift in my dysphoria has been that before it was an overwhelming desire to be female, and now it is still that but more so a hatred of being male and being forced to identify as male.

In terms of feelings it is desire, envy, depression, anxiety, and stress. These are sometimes coupled with fear, embarrassment, and shame. Although I am slowly working to overcome the latter 3 emotions. And often in the mornings, doubt.

I am unsure if that is helpful to you or not. But that's how I experience dysphoria. It is difficult to pinpoint because usually life is throwing other stuff at you too and you become accustomed to living with constant stress, anxiety and depression that unless something adds to the mix, you don't realise you are suffering. Sometimes it takes someone else to point it out to you and then only when you start dealing with it that you realise how bad it was getting.

Take care and if you just need a shoulder to cry on, know that this is a safe space and you can pm any time.

love
Alice

What was dysphoria to me?

Hmm...

It was an envy of anyone female just because they had the right body. I ate into me and for three decades I managed to redirect it. I had obsessive hobbies, I focused on getting degrees, crazy fitness regimes, doing 'impossible' things. But, as the years went by the redirection had to be more and more. The only emotion I really felt was anger, and self loathing of being stuck in this prison of a body. I suffered from social anxiety to the point even using the phone was hard, I rarely looked people in the eye because I didn't want them to see what I was really feeling.

I tried to be a 'man' but never fit. It felt very forced. Finally at 43, 30 years after I knew what I really I needed to do my walls all came crashing down and all i could think about was somehow, anyhow becoming a woman, the real me. I felt split in two like there were two distinct people inside me and SHE had finally had enough. For a while I considered ending it all because the road ahead seemed too hard.

Then, on the day I'd decided that was it I couldn't do it. I knew that if I couldn't die, then I had to transition. I did, I didn't lose as much as I thought and it was the best decision I ever made.

QuoteI rarely looked people in the eye

Yes!  Me too... I thought I might have attention deficit disorder, but since I started being more accepting of myself and more open to people, I find I am no longer avoiding eye contact.

Quote from: Sam1066 on November 11, 2018, 04:56:50 AM
First, depression:

My whole life I've dealt with a very intense fight/flight response in certain social situations which I guess is social anxiety (though I like people, and prefer to be around people), this was often followed by a round of depression for a few hours. I could also get depression from other triggers, most often my depression was triggered by something to do with women, which for the longest time I thought was about feelings of inadequacy (I'm biologically male, am attracted to women). I've always felt like I related to women better but also felt guilty about it as though I don't deserve to because I was born male. Through my 20s this random depression would come and go usually in a matter of hours up to a few days. I learned to deal with it, though it would always hold me back in social situations.

After I started questioning my gender identity I noticed a change in depression, how it affects me. It feels less gripping, more textural. Sometimes when I dress feminine in subtle ways it does reverse it a little bit. I don't know if gender issues are the cause of it or not. I'm wondering, could depression be caused by gender identity and one not know at all that gender identity is the cause? Is that a thing that happens? Is that what dysphoria is for some people? Or is this just a correlation without causation?

I mostly agree with this, I think. The big difference is, I hate people and hate being around people. Call it social anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, or both. (Certain experiences didn't help.) I only dress feminine outside the apartment in situations where I feel I am in total control and everyone around me knows what I'm doing. Going beyond that is scary enough that I wouldn't know how my depression is doing.

Quote from: krobinson103 on November 11, 2018, 11:45:36 AM
I had obsessive hobbies, I focused on getting degrees, crazy fitness regimes, doing 'impossible' things. But, as the years went by the redirection had to be more and more. The only emotion I really felt was anger, and self loathing of being stuck in this prison of a body. I suffered from social anxiety to the point even using the phone was hard, I rarely looked people in the eye because I didn't want them to see what I was really feeling.

I mostly get this too, although I enjoy my obsessive hobbies and hope HRT won't change the ones that I want to keep. I don't know if anger is as much a part of my experience though. But that could be an effect of not having anyone, except my therapist, to blow steam off of.

I don't like making eye contact either, and my parents think it's Asperger's.

That's interesting about eye contact, I've always been lazy about eye-contact and have definitely avoided it at times. I never thought of it as a gender or anxiety related thing because I was also born visually impaired so I figured it was an artifact of that. Though my eyesight is plenty good enough for decent eye contact within 10 feet, so there's that...

That's an interesting data point