Re: The The Difference Between Dysphoria and Negative Body Image
For me, dysphoria and negative body image are totally separate. I’ve reached a point in my life where I think I’m hot as fuck despite and because of my imperfections. But I feel like this body isn’t always mine. It’s like I look down and expect to see something completely different from what’s actually there. But my idea of what should be there is still evolving, so it’s a new surprise every day. That’s not to say that dysphoria doesn’t sometimes impact my body image negatively. There are days when I hate myself because I have tits and two x chromosomes. There are days when I want to die because it’s so bad. But ultimately dysphoria (for me, not speaking for anyone else here) is like a huge, disappointing surprise every day. Like waking up from an awesome dream where I look or feel a certain way about my body and who I am because of the way my body looks, and then I realize that, damn, I still have tits and get called ma’am everywhere I go.
Thank you for sharing that.
I have a similar relationship, at least with my old self. When I hear my old singing voice or see old photos of myself, I think, “Damn, I would totally date that guy.” But being him physically was unbearable. When puberty hit it felt like my body had betrayed me. It was like power armor that I couldn’t escape; a shell I couldn’t remove. Nobody on the outside could look inside to find the real me, and I felt detached from everyone and everything around me. It wasn’t just social detachment; as testosterone took over my body gradually became less and less recognizable as my own. It was only after second puberty that my body really felt like mine again. It carries visible damage from the ordeal, but I’m connected to it again in a way that feels right.
I wish you the best and hope you find a way to ease the pain of dysphoria.
(Source: amydentata)
One of my experiments continues. I scanned my face in 3D with the intent to better illustrate dysphoria, as a companion piece to my most popular post. Preliminary results are promising. I will probably use a higher-quality 3D scan for the final piece; this one has some noise and other weirdness.
(on dysphoria)
Sometimes I try to remove my current anatomy through sheer willpower, as if I can think it into the correct arrangement. Sometimes the dissonance is so strong I want to scream. Sometimes my inner sense of body is so strong I no longer feel what’s physically there. Most of the time, though, I just want it all to be over and done with. In the past. Like a relationship that wasn’t horrible but doomed to fail.
Y’know, if not for the fact that I have crushing bottom dysphoria, I would probably actually really like my junk. If it were attached to any other woman, I’d think it was cute.
I guess I’ll just have to settle for letting my partners enjoy it… ^___^
Same here! It’s a wonderful lump of flesh. It just has no business being attached to me!
This is why I’m done with the narrative that dysphoria means you hate your body. No, the dysphoria I feel isn’t hate. It’s awkwardness, confusion, displacement, discomfort. I may be angry at the situation, angry at the fact some things can’t be changed, angry at the fact I’m not in a position to fix the stuff that can be fixed, but I’m not angry at my body. It’s a perfectly fine body. There are just parts that are out of place on me specifically.
Besides, it’s not like my body had any say in the matter, either. It’s just doing what it does. It didn’t choose any of this either. So why blame it?
99% of the time, orgasms make me feel like shit
Reblog if this applies to you too?
They’re usually a mixed bag, thanks to conflicted feelings re: sex, flashbacks, and dysphoria. Every now and then, though, the planets align, and when they do, it’s freaking AMAZING. Amazing enough I keep at it in the hopes I get another good one. (They’re happening more often!) Plus, my sex drive is there whether the orgasms work out for me emotionally or not.
[TW: rape, dysphoria] There’s not much difference between the betrayal I felt when my body masculinized and when it responded to being raped.
A lot of other aspects are different, but the “betrayal of body” part is so similar that one trigger can bring up the other.
Re: The Difference Between Dysphoria and Negative Body Image
This. THIS. I could be the best looking, most fit man in existence, but it STILL wouldn’t feel right to me. My body and my face seem so wrong to me. The problem with dysphoria is that you can’t change certain things. My shoulders are wide, and no diet or exercise will make them narrow out. It’s like playing a video game. You’re not actually that character on screen, you are just controlling them. To me, I’m in the most realistic video game created, and my character is the body I have now, but I never have a chance to change that character, and I can’t turn off the power and go back to the world where I’m the “real” me. I’ll always be stuck here.Definitely. Especially since sometimes I even like myself. I’ll catch a glimpse of myself at a certain angle on a good day and it’ll look like ME, and more than that, I’ll even think I look a bit attractive… but then later I see the whole picture again and it shatters it. And it’s so frustrating to think that there might actually be the correct-looking “me” in there, I just have to work my ass off to dig myself out. And especially frustrating to realize that if I’d just been born with a single chromosome switched from X to Y, I would probably have none of the problems with self esteem that always plagued me.
(emphasis mine) That’s how it feels for me, too: Like there’s this disgusting shell I have to scrape off, like the real me is in there, just covered up, with a little poking through to the surface here and there. I see little flashes of myself briefly, and then poof, I’m gone.
I have dreams where I’m at some stage in my childhood or teen years, except I’m living as me instead of doing the boy act. I’m not some super-pretty idealized femme like cis people imagine we strive to be. I’m just me, the right way. Still just as tomboyish, still just as nerdy. My hair is still just as flat and fine. My nose is still just as weird. My ears are still big. I’m still just as awkward. But there isn’t any testosterone poisoning, and that makes all the difference.
It feels like coming home.
The Difference Between Dysphoria and Negative Body Image
Most people understand body dysphoria as a dissonance between sense of self and body. But what does that mean?
Is dysphoria the same as feeling uncomfortable after gaining weight? Is it the same as hating your big honking nose? Or is there a fundamental difference between dysphoria and other feelings of bodily discomfort? I think about this quite often. Am I dysphoric about my hips, or do I just feel inadequate in a world where femaleness is defined as possessing childbearing hips? Am I dysphoric about my facial hair, or am I self-conscious because the rest of the world judges hairy women? When is discomfort over my body a result of testosterone poisoning, and when is it a desire to be more attractive? Is it possible to tell the two apart?
Ok, this is Wordpress once again spamming my Tumblr when I update tags on old posts, but I’m gonna leave it here anyway. This is currently my most popular post, and one I’m proud of.
Feeling Disgusting
[content: sex-negativity, masturbation, dysphoria, vague allusions to child abuse]
teasing apart what feelings are caused by dysphoria and what feelings are caused by the sexual abuse can be really tricky. i used to masturbate all the time when i was younger. i felt ashamed and gross afterward each time. after i began the recovery process, i assumed those feelings originated in the abuse. my abusers taught me that sex was wrong (despite their wanting it from me) and that i was wrong for wanting it. they projected all their moral failings onto me and made me believe i was horrible like they were.
those teachings definitely played a role, but after making huge strides in recovery the dirty feelings still remained. nothing i tried could affect them. when a feeling is that persistent, and nothing affects it, i assume there must be a different root than the one i’m working on. i put my efforts elsewhere and hoped something would eventually click.
a few months later, i discovered tricks for feeling less dysphoric while masturbating. if you follow my blog you know the diagram i made. there is more to it than that, though. i reposition things where they’re supposed to be, and i do everything i can to realign the sensations so they feel how they’re supposed to. i cover myself up with a blanket and use guided visualization. i imagine how things are supposed to be, and keep at it until it triggers a feeling in my brain that things are just right. when it works, my body suddenly makes sense and things feel good. the result has been the most satisfying orgasms of my life.
in the past, any orgasm was typically infused with physical and emotional pain. the physical pain came from me clenching up down there, both from old defense mechanisms against the abuse and because of how upsetting my body is. but when my body feels right down there now, the tension eases. my body opens up, and my orgasms are pain-free.
the feelings of disgust disappear, too. it seems a majority of my negative feelings around sex have to do with dysphoria. my body feels deformed, and that is what makes me feel disgusting during sex. its actually a relief to know that not every issue i have with sex comes from my abuse history.
My husbands hips are almost as wide as mine. Definitely makes me feel good :)
Cis men with wide hips activate my THAT’S NOT FAIR!!!11! reflex. I would have made use of those hips! I would appreciate having those hips! Gaaahhhh… time to change subjects before I start wailing uncontrollably.
Yeah, there’s plenty of times when my reaction is: Cis man with perfect bone structure: Why U No Be Trans Girl?!
Seriously.
CAN I AT LEAST BORROW YOUR HIPS? THANKS.
(Source: transparrotfish)
