I would like to start out by saying that everyone is very unique in their experiences. Everyone's dysphoria is different so I will talk about mine. And just to be clear I'm not talking about body dysmorphia but gender dysphoria. I'm sure most have felt a big disconnect between your body and brain. When cisgender people ask me what this feels like I tell them it's hard to explain so with that in mind I ask them to do a few things. First I'll ask them to switch their shoes so the right one is on the left foot and the left one on the right. Then I ask them to walk around for a few minutes. They will usually tell me that it feels strange and I'll ask if it's uncomfortable. Then I'll have them right a sentence using the opposite hand than the one they usually use. They will tell me that it's hard. I'll ask if they feel in control like when they use their dominate hand. They will usually say no. The last thing I will I ask is have you ever watch a movie where the sound and the picture aren't in sync with each other. Kind of like watching those old Kung Foo movies with the voice dubbing. Well that's what my dysphoria is like when talking about my mind and body disconnect.
To further explain I tell them that I never recognized the person I saw in the mirror every day. It's like someone took away my mirror and replaced it with a pane of glass and there was a mime on the other side mimicking my every move. All of this never went away. Day after day, year after year and there seemed to be no way to fix it. I felt like I was in a bubble all the time and could move through reality but I couldn't interact with it. 
This left me uncomfortable, scared, anxious, nervous, angry, depressed and stressed.  Every day was an effort to do even the smallest everyday mundane things. Every little thing I was asked to do... always felt like too much. Even though there was no situational cause for this stress, nothing would ever came easily to me. I was always mentally fatigued and everything was a constant burden and a struggle. It's like there was a constant quarrel between my mind and body. I was emotionally dead. I couldn't feel anything because all my time was consumed with this disconnection. I thought everybody felt this way and I had no idea that the rest of the world didn't feel the same way I did.
My mind was constantly thinking and talking to itself without any interruption, I was over-analyzing everything around me. There always seemed to be a second, parallel universe that seemed to be running alongside my direct experience of consciousness: an inner monologue of sorts, and it was extremely toxic and detrimental to me. There was this loud voice in my head that kept me from simply existing in the moment.
I needed to find a way to be as happy as everyone around me seemed. There was a connection they were feeling with each other that I neither understood our felt. I longed for what they felt. I longed for feeling anything but disconnected. I longed to be understood. This is what started me on a path to finding the help I was looking for and needed. 

It feels like being locked in your room all of your life, looking at the world through small windows, and trying to make sense of it.  A desire to be freed from your prison, and join all the people you see walking or driving down the road, yet remaining fearful due to the relative safety of your room, not to mention the stockholm syndrome that has developed over the years.

I agree with the mirror. I did not recognize myself in the mirror until I accepted myself. A guy looked back at me even when I tried hard to be a woman. The guy just waited for me until I accepted he is me.
Now I can see myself in the mirror. Used to hate mirrors. So much anxiety and self hatred. But not anymore.

I have a depressed feeling when I am gendered female. When I say something. I have voice dysphoria too.  Not on T yet.

Dysphoria. Depressive feeling. An uneasy feeling. A Feeling of being missfit.


Tony

Quote from: MelissaAnn on April 08, 2019, 06:40:32 PM
This left me uncomfortable, scared, anxious, nervous, angry, depressed and stressed.  Every day was an effort to do even the smallest everyday mundane things. Every little thing I was asked to do... always felt like too much. Even though there was no situational cause for this stress, nothing would ever came easily to me. I was always mentally fatigued and everything was a constant burden and a struggle. It's like there was a constant quarrel between my mind and body. I was emotionally dead. I couldn't feel anything because all my time was consumed with this disconnection. My mind was constantly thinking and talking to itself without any interruption, I was over-analyzing everything around me.

Hello again MelissaAnn

I agree with your whole summary and truly identify myself with the part highlighted above.

The best I could do was to be depressed in the "dulled" sense - just existing and never living.

Regularly however I was stressed and depressed wherein it was painful both mentally and physically including pains in the stomach or even in the throat.

I understand and sympathize completely.

Hugs

Pamela  xx

When I look in a mirror for years I didn't recognise the person staring back. They were a stranger.
Now i've had my hair cut and become a bit more "me" in the way I style myself it still is.. odd. Like looking at a bad photoshop job. I look at myself in a mirror and I feel like someone photoshopped my head onto someone elses' body and it's so... jarring.

Hi, MelissaAnn,

I noticed this previously, but didn't have the opportunity to tell you. Your picture is lovely. You shine, girl.

Unlike you and others who have responded, my gender dysphoria was heavily sublimated all of my life. I hated my image in the mirror, in photos; and I hated the sound of my own voice. But I didn't get the gender connection. It would be funny, if it weren't so tragic. Because, just because I didn't get the connection, doesn't mean it didn't devastate my life. Oh, no, precious. It did.

It wasn't until after coming out to myself that I experienced distress that was clearly connected to gender. The first few times were merely curiosities; the third time, I was looking at my image in the bathroom mirror and nearly threw up. That scared the hell out of me. I can't imagine what it's like to live with that, year after year. Thank goodness, it hasn't repeated. I've felt it threatening to return, and thank heaven I know how to avoid it, at least so far.

If gender dysphoria is the price of being a woman, I'll pay it. Being a woman is the greatest gift I have ever received.

Quote from: Ann W on April 10, 2019, 04:49:05 PM
Hi, MelissaAnn,

I noticed this previously, but didn't have the opportunity to tell you. Your picture is lovely. You shine, girl.

Unlike you and others who have responded, my gender dysphoria was heavily sublimated all of my life. I hated my image in the mirror, in photos; and I hated the sound of my own voice. But I didn't get the gender connection. It would be funny, if it weren't so tragic. Because, just because I didn't get the connection, doesn't mean it didn't devastate my life. Oh, no, precious. It did.

It wasn't until after coming out to myself that I experienced distress that was clearly connected to gender. The first few times were merely curiosities; the third time, I was looking at my image in the bathroom mirror and nearly threw up. That scared the hell out of me. I can't imagine what it's like to live with that, year after year. Thank goodness, it hasn't repeated. I've felt it threatening to return, and thank heaven I know how to avoid it, at least so far.

If gender dysphoria is the price of being a woman, I'll pay it. Being a woman is the greatest gift I have ever received.

My experience has very much been like this. For weeks after discovering my gender dysphoria I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror without crying.

As for describing what it's like, the best I've been able to tell (the two) people I've come out to so far is that it's like I'm at odds with my own body. The analogy I used, though not great, was imagine you're a pilot, but you got put into a vehicle that you weren't trained for. Sure you can manage, but everything feels off or just wrong.

Blessings,
Alla