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 

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.

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.   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.   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.