we all go to great lengths to simulate body parts we don't have and vice versa. i'm sure we've all experienced the phantom breasts/penis, and try to associate these feelings with the stuffed bra, the packers, etc.

i am curious as to how everyone "owns" such parts and makes the mental connection to paraphernelia that aren't actually attached.

I always had that phantom feeling of a missing penis. As a kid I sometimes stuffed my pants with Kleenex when going to sleep as "there was something missing there", but did not dare to do it during the day. Did it feel like it was part of me then? Not quite. With my breasts, it's the opposite, they feel like they are "no part of me".
As an adult, I did not stuff anything anymore. Ever. Not even when transitioning, as wearing a stuffer makes me depressed, I cannot connect to it and feel it to be a part of my body. It rather remains me that there is "something missing there". Oddly, with strap-ons, it's different, no matter what odd shape, size or color I use, it feels like it's a part of me.

Since my clit has been growing to a certain size and adopted some of the male functions (only some of course), a lot has changed. It feels like it's part of my body, not quite a penis but close enough to it that I am happy with it and feel okay about it. Which is awesome as it will me save a lot of trouble for bottom surgery. So my dicklit is my packer, so to say.

As silly as it may sound, during my all too short tim living as female, I forgot I wasn't.There were probably other issues there, but I do recall, when I had to face up to being male again, feeling worse than I had aver been before. Walking around without breasts, felt a bit like the way you might feel when you know you've forgotten something really important.

The lump between my legs is a constant reminder of how inadequate my body is. I read of some on here who 'tuck' and would love to be able to do this.

As I've gotten older, I've found my awareness of reality has increased. I can no-longer maintain my aspirations through imagination.

I still, sometimes, wake and check if it is still there, as I did when I was a child. But that is probably a habit.

But another, more welcome feature of getting older is I no-longer care quite so much. I maintain what I need to to survive, rather than worry about what others are thinking. This may be my greater acceptance of my personality. I'm not particularly sociable. I now realise this is perfectly normal and not at all uncommon.

In recent months, I've realised that I am just a woman with a very unfeminine body. C'est la vie.

I am not sure I completely understand the premise of the question.

cynthia; yeah, i am having trouble phrasing it. let me try again.

in your case, how do you reconfigure your brain to say, this isn't a bra stuffed with material, these are my breasts. or for a guy, this isn't a plastic packy, this is my penis.

obviously, reality tells us that we will never -truly- believe these things, but we have to believe them to a certain extent to get past the dysphoria. i am wondering how everyone handles this, how they go about it, do they at all, etc.

I think I understand the question. When I first started all this, I bought a nice pair of silicone breast forms with pocket bras. The breast forms warm to your skin, look and move pretty convincingly, and even bounce when walking. It was pretty easy to buy into the illusion, at least while I was "dressed". It was always a letdown to take them off, because it made it hit home that it WAS just an illusion after all.

Since my own breasts are coming in, I no longer use the breast forms and am much happier, as there is no illusion to buy into any more. I can wear real bras under my clothes which makes me feel that much more "in tune" so to speak.

Now if only I could learn to tuck better....

Since i started developing breasts I no longer use breast forms either. I also no longer get phantom breast, I have breasts, they just are not up to my body images size desire yet. I do however still deal with phantom vagina but I have no clue how to deal with this other than surgery.

Quote from: Fencesitter on August 02, 2010, 12:21:20 AM
As a kid I sometimes stuffed my pants with Kleenex when going to sleep as "there was something missing there", but did not dare to do it during the day.

Huh.  You know, I did something similar as a kid with toilet paper...shaped it like a penis as much as possible and tucked it in, I wanted one so bad.  My mom caught me one time when I was changing clothes and was like "WHAT is THAT?!"  I got into a lot of trouble over it.  Very embarrassing.   

I had the phantom breast feelings when I first started.   And as things began to develop Those phantom feelings became real.

I am one of those ones that had no problem tucking.  And since I had my Orchidectomy, tucking is even easier.  Now I have the phantom ovaries, especially when I get low back pain.

Quote from: Janet Lynn on August 03, 2010, 06:08:19 PMNow I have the phantom ovaries, especially when I get low back pain.

Sorry for your back pain. Phantom ovaries hurting? Ouch. Interesting to see that the GID phantom feelings go even to the inside of the body for other people, too. I have a phantom prostata, luckily it does not "hurt" and only manifests in... well... nice situations not suitable to explain to minors.

Oh, and whenever someone risked to kick my private parts, I freaked out in fear of the pain when my phantom balls could get hit. It made me stop combat sport a couple of years ago. In other situations, I don't have phantom balls but only an empty phantom scrotum aka outer labia.

Part of that comes from an ex, who use to have lower back pain for three or four days before she started her period.

phantom limb is a comon symptom among many of us, not all get it and I envy those who do not
I figure it is a result of one of two possibilities.
1. it is a psychosomatic response to the stress of GID
2. we are actualy hard wired for the wrong genitals

or a combination of both maybe, but regardless it sucks

This might be strange and graphic, but often times during orgasm I have a huge urge to put my fingers inside myself, as if there is an "itch" in there that I need to scratch... phantom vagina?

Quote from: AprilDawn on August 03, 2010, 09:21:51 PM
This might be strange and graphic, but often times during orgasm I have a huge urge to put my fingers inside myself, as if there is an "itch" in there that I need to scratch... phantom vagina?

Might also be your prostata wanting some attention, or might be this plus phantom vagina at the same time. Where guys have a prostata, girls have somethig similar but smaller at the same place. They have a glandular tissue around their urethra which swells when they are aroused. It protects the urethra from injury during sex and is a very sensitive in the vagina, also known as the G-spot and this might be what causes female ejaculation. (Look up Skene's gland in Wikipedia)

When I have to go in drab I can really feel the lack of breast tissue. I also find myself moving a lock of my hair, and it isn't there. I also have a bad tendency to smooth my skirt as I sit down and I'm wearing trousers . I tuck full time and sometimes forget that it's there - a really good feeling
I also get a little irritable and a bit of tummy cramps every 25-31 days. I've started tracking them now. I never used to think of it, but now???

Cindy

Quote from: CindyJames on August 04, 2010, 03:56:05 AM
I also find myself moving a lock of my hair, and it isn't there.

Funny, I used to scratch my non-existing beard a lot. Now I can scratch my existing beard a lot, which is great. Oh and lack of muscles did the same weird feeling for me.

One thing which always makes me wonder is that this discrepancy between how you feel/expect your body is and how it really is almost never comes up in medical writings about transsexuality. I found it in the old classic book from Harry Benjamin, but somehow it hardly comes up in the more "modern" medical books about transsexuality. I suppose most shrinks who write books on us either dismiss this phenomenon as being something else than it is or do not take us trans folks seriously when we tell them about it.

I agree. I don't think most medics and others do take us seriously.

But we need to stand our ground.

It's our body. it's our life. This is what we want.

Quote from: spacial on August 04, 2010, 07:14:51 AM
I agree. I don't think most medics and others do take us seriously.

But we need to stand our ground.

It's our body. it's our life. This is what we want.

I agree. That's precisely why I just don't take the medics seriously any more or whatever they write about us. Mr. Benjamin got it right and wrote about it in his book. In the more recent shrink books I read, it was all about gender role and gender identity, and NOTHING at all about this body shape problem. I guess they miss one of the most important points here and for me, that's just them being unprofessional and not listening to us. May also cause a lot of wrong positive and negative diagnoses...

True, and a lot of people will point at the "false positives" as proof that GID is nothing more than a fantasy or whatever they want to call it, instead of looking to all the happy and successful transitioners for their answers. Detractors will always shine a huge spotlight on the failed transitions to scare people or change people's opinions about transition because they themselves are against it for whatever reason, instead of just telling the whole truth. Many of those opinions are likely highly biased.

This is, to an extent, a consequnce of medicalising the situation.

We, as sane adults, should have control over our own bodies.

Children who express dysmorphic feelings should be taken seriously.