My dysphoria

I want to explain in my own words, things concerning the concept of dysphoria, in practice. And my dysphoria is one of the weakest types there is, so I’m definitely not an expert.

But I feel a lot of people don’t realize this is a thing many non-cis people experience.

If the word is unknown to you, read a bit on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphoria

Even though Wikipedia says it should not be confused with, but let’s be honest, this is really just the extremer of forms of dysphoria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder

In general

For someone who does not identify with their designated gender when they were born, dysphoria was always there. The dysphoria was always there, but you never actually thought of having it – until you realized you are not cisgender. Only then, it all makes sense.

When I heard the story of a trans woman who realized so late in life that she was trans, it was only too familiar of a story. When she told the internet that for years she did not look in the mirror, not because she already realized she was trans – she did not, but because she had simply learned to not look at her face. Because we just try to do whatever is needed to be happy, and looking in the mirror does not accomplish that.

The strangest thing about dysphoria is how much it is rooted in traits that are often of a binary point of view, but still, each experience is different. And the experience might change a bit the further a person is in either transition or understanding of themselves.

Where one can imagine trans men would genuinely hate their breasts, and trans women hate not having them and the bulge in their pants – things aren’t that straightforward usually. Body hair and lack of is a big part of either trans, as well as shapes and other bodily characteristics might be part of the dysphoria as well.

Being trans is not about the dysphoria, but it does often come in pairs.

My experience

So, as I said, my experience of dysphoria is the weakest of all. But it is only weak because I have lived with it for so long. In a sense, my dysphoria is normalized within me so that I can live with it without actually feeling the extreme consequences that others might.

As I understand it, mine is currently rooted in:

• I greatly dislike my facial hair, it is painful, itchy and ugly
• I prefer to not have dark body hair literally everywhere
• I dislike not having an hourglass figure

A lot of this is “fixed” by shaving and makeup. I can honestly say I’m most happy about looking in the mirror when the shave and makeup are enough to make me either look androgynous or feminine.

But because of the normalization of my dysphoria, it’s not that I actually feel the dysphoria, it’s that I’m just not as happy as I could be. I can sometimes choose to not shave because of time constraints, but I definitely will not feel ok about it.

The interesting part of me being nonbinary is that I don’t actually blame myself for all of these things (just some), but the idiotic standards society designates as being either masculine or feminine.

But others

But in the binary lies the problem that many trans people face day by day. Their dysphoria is many times more problematic than mine, they do not simply “be Not happy”, they will actually hate themselves when their dysphoria becomes too great.

Even when on HRT, when trans people should feel more like themselves – and they usually do – dysphoria can still occur.

And at that point the dysphoria is not just ‘there’, it becomes a beast that is fueled by your environment. When you did your best to pass as a woman one day but forgot to put on that crazy red lipstick, and then someone calls you sir, the dysphoria will make you hate yourself ever so more.

It doesn’t take being trans to know that a person that hates themselves and gets given more reasons to hate themselves, things might not end well.

The binary should end

I’m of the opinion, that our society should unlearn the binary of gender. Not because it’s simply wrong and the fact that gender is a spectrum, or that I think there’s anything wrong with wanting to identify as being a man or woman (there really isn’t). But because of Dysphoria and BDD, there’s actual harm in events that push one person into a position where they will increase their self-hatred and or self-harm.

The questions one should ask is;

• In this situation is there really any need to address someone as sir/ma’am? How about just ‘Do you..’, ‘How are you..’, ‘Excuse me, ..’ – if you worry about being “polite”, being nice is of equal value, if not more of value.
• Is this thing or concept really dependent off a gender? What prevents another gender to use it? Will they die from wearing, using or eating it?
• Are you a doctor? What is the relevance of you knowing this intimate detail of another person’s body?

 

#unscripted – I don’t understand how life happened

I’m 31 years old and somehow life is here and gone by. Everything that seemed to be so significant in the past, really wasn’t.

Somehow I’m only now grasping at the incredible privilege I’ve had that I just got this bachelor degree, got jobs, got a place to live in, and I don’t understand why.

Life in the Netherlands is very different from any movie you’ve seen that involved schools. There are no fancy school balls, no dorms, no fancy graduation gowns and ceremonies. I can hardly remember school. I learned things, I think. But all 3 school levels were just a blur of general brain building without memorable events. Brain building is a good thing, important thing, so important, but I can imagine people in later life forgetting about that. It’s easy to forget and suppress school.

It’s also easy to forget the privilege involved in these things. I was born at the right time, from the right parents. I was able to live at my parents’ for the entire time, our government payed for most of all 3 schools throughout my life. And because I somehow ended up being ok enough and finished things in time, I was gifted the money owed by our gov. Something that has changed since.

I think I did some of things by myself, I passed tests and exams, I got internships and jobs by myself, did the work by myself. At least I think I did. But it did involve a lot of help I wouldn’t have gotten if I was born somewhere else or at a different time.

And now I have some kind of job, live on my own, can somehow pay for so much. So much. And I don’t understand why, anymore.

#unscripted – Learning to swipe right

I’m so new to this – not just Tinder – but even just having a conversation with anyone, that I have every reason to hide under the bed and never get out from under it.

One can say a lot about the people on Tinder, but you know we all like and dislike certain things, but in the end we’re all different despite the similarities you see sometimes. There’s a lot of people to swipe right in the world, and some are fine to do it just by a glance at someone’s pictures. Most people seem to have some kind of type it seems and can swipe left and right accordingly.

Me, not so much. I like a lot more people, which is actually a problem. Because it makes me having to rely on personality, which is a big unknown even when some has a long description with the emoji’s signifying what things they like in life. More often than not, it doesn’t actually say anything, and I have to somehow figure out who someone might be through their photo’s.

Currently my “strategy” is to swipe left, unless there are some really big hints going on that I could swipe right, because that’s when I put my phone away and hope the decision goes away without me actually swiping right.

Which isn’t just really silly, it’s actually problematic that this is somehow a really big deal in my head. It shouldn’t be. But what if I’ll actually be faced with having to have an actual conversation with someone I don’t know. What’s up with that. How. Can’t I just watch Netflix instead? It’s so much easier. Life is so much easier when you don’t have to socialize with other people… But I know sometimes it’s worth it, even if it’s scary.

So here’s to more swiping to the right without thinking too much about it.

But let me watch this series on Netflix first…