How did you "feel" your gender dysphoria? Did you feel "connected" to your body before your egg cracked?


So, going through some changes in life lately (career, housing, relationships) that are currently making me reflect on who I am.

For some added context, I've always struggled with depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions. At some point I struggled with self harm and suicidal thoughts too but I worked on that and since then I've never relapsed or felt the same struggle with it as before.

However now that I'm not feeling as mentally clouded as I did before, I realize that some of those issues were caused in part by childhood traumas that left me very disconnected from myself. From my emotions, my needs, my interests and my gender.

The last gender part is a recent discovery tbh as I've never truly reflected on it before. Like, I always saw gender as something "unimportant" to me. I just presented masculine by default because society told me to and I went along with it.

But while I never felt restricted by my gender externally*, I've basically ignored my gender internally and completely disassociated from it.

*(By externally I mean I still liked pink and other non conforming things even if "boys aren't supposed to", I've always had more female friends, enjoyed queer arts and had gay friends)

I've read stories of some trans people saying that they always knew their assigned at birth bodies weren't right. But I also read of those who didn't immediately know.

I hope some of this makes sense. I wasn't sure how to word some parts... but I'm also feeling confused about a lot at the moment hehe and I'd appreciate hearing different experiences and points of view on this if possible.

If this is not the right community for this, please let me know where I could post this

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[–] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Looking back, I just played my assigned gender as best as I could while I lost my sense of identity. I never experienced much dysphoria, just a lot of fatigue from performing all the time. Only in intimate relationships did I really experience dysphoria because it felt like my partner loved someone who wasn’t me. At the time I didn’t have the words to describe it though.

When I was still doubting whether I was trans I just went for it since I felt like I didn’t have much to lose. I knew that if at any point I would start to feel regret about transitioning, I could just go back. It helped that I felt very empowered by the idea of getting to choose my own gender. I was finally able to loosen the restrictions I had put on myself to perform my assigned gender perfectly, and allowed myself to just be as comfortable as possible with my presentation and how I interacted with people. It feels liberating and prideful. I love being trans.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    I never experienced much dysphoria, just a lot of fatigue from performing all the time.

    This is social dysphoria, and it's valid!

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    II didn’t often feel any negativity from my performance, sometimes I even liked it. It just didn’t feel like me and it tired me out. That’s why I don’t consider all of it to be dysphoria.

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