Dysphoria and past

[Sam W]

Hi shadowsong,

There's quite a bit going on in these posts, so I'm going to address a few different things and we can go from there. First off, I want to give you this piece, in case you haven't already read it, because it might be relevant to your feelings about your experience versus the experience of other trans people:
Trans Summer School: Am I Trans Enough? . When you say you find them mostly talking about the physical aspects of transition rather than the emotional or coping aspects, is that a pattern you notice in written or other static spaces? Or is it happening in conversations or contexts like support groups? The reason I ask is that, if it's happening in conversation, I think you have some chance of being able to ask about the aspects that you feel are most relevant to you (such as how other trans people deal with some of the emotional elements of their identity). Too, it may also help to remember that, while it may feel like other people have gone through their physical transition very hastily, for the most part trans folks who physically transition in any way have thought through the process as much as they needed to. But it's also okay for you to feel as though you'd need much more time to make those decisions than other people did.

I hear you saying that you're struggling to practice self-care or self-love, things that you think might help you out. When you say you feel like you're being denied the chance to practice them, is there a specific thing that happens that makes you feel that way? Or do you feel like most self-care practices focus on the physical side of things, which is something that you know sets off your dysphoria?

It also sounds like you're struggling to find things that make your days feel full or satisfying. Is that something you'd like help brainstorming ways to address?

[ShadowSong21]

I've read all the articles I could find on this side that were applicable, this one too. With other trans people I find this pattern to be repeated everywhere: in articles, in online forums, online support groups, and local irl support groups. I've tried asking more about emotional and mental practices for coping and self-care, but answers were mostly vague, ignored and people tended to jump back to physical aspects of transition.

I indeed feel that majority of self-care practices are physical, and people often advice to get familiar with my "unique body" which isn't something I can do easily and so I just get same advice over and over, just watching how others get to explore and experience physical pleasures and talk about them and share.

As I already said avoiding sexual side isn't a solution I'm content with. But sometimes it's the only one I have. Seeing sexual scene pop up in a movie, see how trans people are excluded when talking about genders and sex (whether it's on durex's website, Facebook sex positive group or elsewhere) just makes me feel like less of a woman if a woman at all.

What I mean by my day not being satisfying is I find that nothing can muffle my dysphoria enough for me to enjoy myself as a person or what I do, makes me dependant of very few comfort things I found to be somewhat working ( some of which I'm stripped of for the most of the day). So I'd like help with brainstorming how to overcome it and find my own frame of mind that'll give me peace. Reading trans related materials also often sets off my dysphoria reminding me that I'm not a girl, I'm just trans.

[Heather]

Honestly, as much as I really, really wish we could help you, this just sounds like it's at a level where you're unlikely to be able to get what you need from the kind of service we offer, or from online services, period. It sounds like something where working one-on-one with a qualified therapist is probably what you really need and what is going to help here.

I know that's not what you'll want to hear, obviously, given your lack of success with that care. And that's also in no way me telling you we're done helping here, and seeya later. I just want to check expectations a bit, and I also want to encourage you to please share all of this just as candidly with your therapists and really do what you can to push them to help you with this. If one or more of them do not have the training or education to do so, then it's important you call out if they just aren't helping and ask them to help you find someone who is.

That all said, I wonder what you can do to perhaps focus less on this part of who you are -- after all, gender is just one part of who we are, one part of so, so many -- and more on other parts of yourself where you do feel more comfortable, more at peace, that more often leave you feeling good about yourself and like you do have a place in the world.

For instance, what about your spiritual self, if that's something that resonates with you? And of your skills or talents? What about the part of you who experiences the world through your senses? What about your creative self, or your physical self that isn't about gender, but about, for example, movement or ability? How much focus and energy are you putting into those parts or others? Can you perhaps take some you're putting into gender and move them?

(Caveat: I'm someone who is pretty gender-neutral a lot of the time, so I want to be plain that the fact that it's not that hard for me to just basically forget gender is even a thing in a lot of contexts. It know that stepping away from even thinking about or feeling gender is a lot harder for most people, so if my advice above just seems ridiculous or impossible to you, we can certainly ditch it instead of digging in.)

[Heather]

ShadowSong: I did a bunch of asking around on your behalf this morning, and I have a referral for your area from a therapist on our advisory board for Scarleteen who works in Europe. He does have training in and a focus on gender dysphoria, specifically, and is both a psychiatrist and sex therapist, as well.

I am going to email you his name and contact information, so be on the lookout. He comes highly recommended from this board member and my colleague.

[ShadowSong21]

Thank you for engaging so much into it. And thank you for the contact but I actually already am a patient of this person. ^_^ He's very occupied though, so I visit him once every 1-2 months for an hour and am with contact with his colleague. I visit her once every 2 weeks and they keep in touch regarding my case.
I didn't assume or think that you'd magically come up with a way to solve my problem, I was looking for a hint, track or scent of some way of thinking that I could build upon my frame of mind, to help me enforce myself.Some different perspective that could help me accept myself.

Regarding me outside of gender, I've been playing video games since I was 5 and got pretty good at it, I'm generally a logic thinker with a problem solving attitude and abilities, but also very empathetic. For a year now I keep on improving my art skills and am in college school for graphic design. Also my English is more fluent than 90% of Poland population's. So I've got a lot going for myself in that regard, and have lots more big plans for self-development and helping others.Yet I'm still somewhat inhibited, since I'm struggling to find peace of mind in gender area specifically, and life comes with a good dose of daily challenges as well.

[Heather]

Well, you sure showed me!

Boy, the world can be small. I'm so sorry that that turned into a bit of a dead end for you, though I do wonder -- if you have felt you benefitted from his time when you have it -- if you might want to ask if he can perhaps see you more often. It might be worth a shot, schedules do change, and he might not also be totally clear on the level of continued distress you've been in.

We've talked about gaming as a respite before, and a little about art. But that's just two things/areas. I get that gender can come up a lot, but I also think you can probably think of at least two more things/areas where it either really doesn't, doesn't have to, or feels less painful or problematic when it does?

This is also going to probably sound really glib. Please know I don't mean it that way: I know very well how hard accepting ourselves can be sometimes.

But I find that self-acceptance is one of those things -- for me, and often for others -- where it comes in tiny drips and drops and takes a while to build up enough that we really feel it in a big way. But those tiny drops are also often less difficult to create than trying to make something bigger happen, and a bunch of them accumulated can creep up on you and surprise you with a nice big batch of self-acceptance, even self-love, sometimes.

So, I'd also suggest seeing what you can do, as much as you can, to just accept yourself in tiny ways as a practice. Even if just today, for example, you could sit with yourself and just give yourself one moment -- say, 60 seconds -- where you just think, "I accept myself for exactly who I am right now," focusing on it as best you can even if the brain weasels come hollering, that can be one of those drops. A few more of those every day, maybe a nod or a smile at yourself in a mirror once a day, letting yourself visualize and feel you as who you really feel like and letting it be whatever it is, and a bunch of doing little things for the person you know you are, what they want, and voila -- you have a mug full.

I think it's easy to get bogged down in trying to make the big acceptances happen, and how big not having them feels. Smaller tiny bite-sized things like this, however, are probably within reach and ask much less of you.