Dysphoria

Body dysphoria: A state of unease or dissatisfaction with ones' body.

Or as trans people may say: The feeling of being in somebody else's body. A body that does not belong to you. A body you can not identify with. Feeling as if you were born in the wrong body.

A lot of people can't even begin to imagine being trans. How could they? Only trans people know what it's truly like to be trans. But, cisgender* people, let's try, shall we?

Don't ask yourself what it would be like to feel like the opposite sex.

Imagine if you had the opposite sex's body.

How would you feel?

• Wrong?
• Confused?
• Depressed?
• Disgusting?

Now imagine feeling that every single day, every single second. Comparing yourself to every person with your desired body.

Dysphoria eats away at you.

Personally, some days I feel very little dysphoria and on other days I will not leave the house, because I feel so disgusting, so distressed that I just want to rip out of my skin. I would turn my mirrors around so I wouldn't have to look at myself and contemplate doing things I'm so glad I never followed through.

I do not feel that I was 'born in the wrong body'. Despite how unbelievably miserable it can make me, this is my body. I might plan to remove or add certain parts, but this is my body. It functions efficiently and for that I am grateful.

The only way that I can begin to feel comfortable with my body is to alleviate the dysphoria. I can try and hide or shape my body into one I'm more comfortable with. Make me appear more masculine to the people who will view me as my physical gender. Make me be able to turn those mirrors back around and look at myself and say, "I am not as bad as I view myself"
Dysphoria is personal and from the outside looking in you may not be able to see it, but it's always there, like a physical depression.
(I will go into how I alleviate dysphoria on other posts.)

Trans people aren't the only people that experience dysphoria. People with weight issues or even just people with severe insecurities about their body suffer too.

Dysphoria is what makes us realise who we really are and is the driving force that makes us want to change our bodies.

Perhaps if more people could see that transsexualism is a physical issue rather than a mental one, there would be less discrimination and hatred towards us?

*Cisgender =  Identifying with the sex you were assigned at birth. The opposite of transgender.

Aiden: Dysphoria is the urge to rip yourself out of the wrong skin.

Cameron: Dysphoria is like a person who always follows you around, putting you down

Elliot-Jay: Dysphoria is when you look down and see things that ain't meant to be there, dysphoria haunts me everyday making me trapped!

Jakob: Dysphoria is a constant feeling of discomfort.

Koda James: Dysphoria is crying yourself to sleep every night because you're trapped like a bird in a cage waiting to be free.

Leon: Discomfort and sadness.

Noah: A constant anxiety and sadness.

Piper: Dysphoria is the weight on your chest before putting your binder on. It's the tears that come to your eyes when you realise how long it might be until you get your surgery. Dysphoria is the monster under your bed, only it's much more deadly.

Thomas: Dysphoria is a horrible feeling of discomfort that over runs our lives.

Tyler: Dysphoria is an all-pervading wrongness, a sinister whisper on the good days and a cacophonous roar when I am most vulnerable

Xander: The thing that makes your chest tight then you put a binder on and it becomes tighter for a second before releasing as you hear the word Sir- dysphoria.

Zach: Dysphoria is like being trapped in a cave inside that struggles to break free out in society.

fab