So, I’m baby trans. I’m exploring, at what feels like a glacial pace, but feel the urge to do something more. More, different clothes, idk. **But ** I think I have this fear of looking ridiculous with something and just hating myself and getting depressed, so I just don’t.
I was thinking I was “afraid of feeling dysphoric”, but today I started wondering, it’s that fear actually the dysphoria?
Bonus thought; the wanting to explore, but not knowing what to do, feels a little bit like when you have an itch on your back and try to get someone to help but they more of chase it around until you just give up. It’s like that. My gender is itchy and I can’t figure out how to scratch it 🤣
I can’t give you any advice for your specific experience, but I know for me I’ve been a lot happier with myself after I realized that just because I think other people might judge me doesn’t mean I have to judge myself the same way. It’s up to you to look the way that makes you feel good, and no one except yourself can really tell you what that should be.
If you feel the need to change something but you can’t figure out what you want to change I recommend meditating on it and being honest with yourself. A lot of times my indecision has been the result of cognitive dissonance that I didn’t fully understand until years later when I actually started consciously unpacking my values.
Can you give an example about the cognitive dissonance in this context? I definitely partially blame choice paralysis, but I think combined it’s a little bit of, I have a vague idea of what I want, but don’t know how to get there.
And my stupid “well if I don’t know the plan I don’t know where to start” thing 😅 I know it’s a thing and I’ve been working with my therapist on it but still
Yeah for sure. So I grew up around a bunch of people who thought tattoos were inappropriate. And because everyone said they were inappropriate, I grew up believing they were inappropriate.
It wasn’t until later in life I realized I actually thought tattoos were cool and the only reason I didn’t have any is because I never actually made a choice based on my opinion. I was living based on someone else’s.
(Or replace “tattoos” with whatever you in particular feel bad/stressed about.)
I can 100% relate to the feeling of “if I don’t know the plan I don’t know where to start”.
The conclusion I came to is that it’s impossible to know if there is a “plan”. But hypothetically if there was a plan, what would you want it to look like? For me that plan would be “I’ll do the things I think are right. I’ll do the things that make me feel good (enjoying life, helping other people enjoy their lives) and when I mess up I’ll forgive myself and have faith that others will forgive me.”
That is a really helpful idea! I mean, it is basically just take a first step and see how it goes, but the way you framed it made my brain “get it” 😅 I just gotta get an idea of the next couple steps ND then figure the rest out, then it’ll feel more like a path instead of blindly wandering one step at a time.
For me at least, there’s a weird “zen” to the dysphoria and fear. Not that it’s pleasant, of course, but if I feel that strongly about something, even in a negative way, it reinforces the identity that much more.
“I wouldn’t be afraid if this didn’t matter to me. Avoiding opportunities for dysphoria means the incongruence with my body is real, I am not making this up.”
I’m trying to remember how I felt when I was baby trans. I did also explore at a glacial pace mostly because I was afraid of what others would think of me.
I do remember having thoughts that I didn’t want to think about because I was afraid of feeling dysphoric. I kept having these thoughts that made me uncomfortable and I would immediately try ignoring them. Eventually that got tiring so I started forcing myself to think about them. It was uncomfortable at first but they did help me to understand myself better and it meant that I didn’t have these uncomfortable thoughts anymore.
Also, on your bonus thought, I recently realized that in a few years I will have approached the point where I will have nothing else to do. I’m very addicted to the high of gender euphoria so idk what I’m going to do when I reach that point. Like I’m getting my name changed in a few months, and then after that all I have that I want to do is get gender affirming surgeries and change my legal sex. After that, idk if I will just be permanently itchy for more gender euphoria or if my itch will be cured. Anyways, make sure you savor those gender euphoria highs whenever you get them, because after you do everything you want to do, idk if you get them anymore.
As someone who has done everything they need to do, I will say that I do miss those early days of gender euphoria. It’s something special and beautiful, and everyone should cherish those moments, because eventually… everything will just be normal. Which is great! But it does get to a point where you’re just you. That’s the end goal, right?
It was a long, difficult journey for me, but I will always cherish every moment of it. It’s like childhood; you experience it once, and then it’s gone, and all that’s left are the memories.
That is a beautiful way to put it
Is it normal that i felt sad with your third paragraph ?
This might just be me, but I still get gender euphoria. I wouldn’t consider it an inevitability that one day you’ll find being a woman less novel and exciting than you did before. Some people settle into apathy towards it, but others don’t. Personally, I experience much more euphoria now than I ever have.
a true poet <3
this wasnt meant sarcastic or anything. just now i was thinking about what radical eagle said and eventually the thought came “i dont want to be a woman.” then i corrected the thought to “i dont want to be a man” but then i thought about why i wouldnt want to be a woman and well, not in this world… but i wouldnt want to keep trying to keep the act up to be a man… probably helped that i was in a bit of a theater thingie as a child…
i have this habit of dwelling on how if my childhood had been different or something, i could have gotten something to prevent my voice from changing… i was in a choir as a child, sang in sopran … sure, later i stayed there with my bass voice and still had fun… but my vocal range has always felt heavily stunted in the upper region without resorting to falsetto… which is cool and all but like… i used to be able to get there without getting all nasaly about it… sure, i was tiny and so was my throat and stuff, but … i had a lot of fun with that organ… not so much with the dlc that dropped suddenly. and getting into anything remotely well as into singing was HARD and discouraging and i was an awful child… well, my parents were awful parents that were parented themself horribly, so there is that and it probably has been going on for at least ww1 but fuck if i knew and i dont even want to :)
anyway, cheers!
I think it’s just fear/anxiety. Fear of the unknown, fear you won’t like how you look, fear that you’ll be judged. Gender dysphoria is resolved through the elimination of the in-congruence between your self and your gender identity. My advice is: stop looking for dysphoria and start looking for what you want.
What kinds of clothes do you want to wear? What kinds of pronouns do you want to use? What kind of makeup styles would you like to try? Don’t know the answer to these? Experiment! Try different things. Randomly if you have to! See what you like! Focus on how these things make you feel. You mentioned that you’ve already experimented with your nails. How do you like them? How do they make you feel?
