Eleven days. Also a discussion/question of gender dysphoria below the waist and near-panic attacks.
It is just eleven days. For some reason, as I count down the days, every day brings with itself new insights and revelations. Yesterday/today it's discovering that I might actually be a LOT more dysphoric than I thought.
To recap: After talking with Tigress and my sis (I ❤️ you both): I realized that my panic and basic, fundamental distress related to my genitals might not be completely due to my upbringing (conservative, Catholic, sex-is-taboo), but rooted in something deeper - like, telling someone they're attractive and you are interested in them? Tough - and almost impossible for me. But there's a twist:
I realized it's deeper when the very idea of asking my endocrinologist if we could roll a control visit and post-op check-up into one basically caused me to experience anxiety like I rarely experienced before and almost never in the past couple of years. It's not that she's not used to working on people below the waist (she's also an obstetrician and a gynecologist), or that she's not LGBT friendly or unsupportive - far from it, she's in my personal top three of the best doctors I've been treated by - so there's nothing medically unusual. So it's gotta be me.
I basically opened the draft email window an hour ago, stared at it, flipped to other tabs, and spent most of the past hour basically forcing myself to type what amounts to a single, short paragraph of text. And then I spent another while trying to beat the sheer panic of actually clicking send (I sent it!)
Looking inwards, it feels that the thought of anyone seeing me naked down there in real life means I go from zero to near-panic in the span of seconds. I still feel that fist in my belly - like, literal, physical pain resulting from that fear - like someone just kept punching me. Hell, I'm typing this up half an hour later and I am still laying in bed, feeling the pain and trying not to throw up.
It might sound weird given that I seemingly have no qualms sharing myself with people I like, love, trust - but pretty much the only conclusion I'm drawing here is that I have much, much greater gender dysphoria associated with my genitals than I previously thought possible.
Anyone's experiences compare? I think this never really came up during diagnosis, because I never *thought* this might be it and nobody really asked the simple question of how would I react if asked to undress for any legitimate reason.
Eleven days. Also a discussion/question of gender dysphoria below the waist and near-panic attacks.
@tagaziel
opening up topics and having a perspective for change can make previously dissociated feelings arrive on a more conscious level.
re: Eleven days. Also a discussion/question of gender dysphoria below the waist and near-panic attacks.
@juno Yeah - and in this case in particular, it's something that clicked after years and years (25+) of me dismissing it as just me being a combination of shy and brought up in a specific way - but this is such a strong and visceral reaction that it surprised even me. And it happened in relation with some of the most supportive and friendly people I know.
re: Eleven days. Also a discussion/question of gender dysphoria below the waist and near-panic attacks.
@tagaziel
it might have been new and now because you felt safe enough to be vulnerable?
re: Eleven days. Also a discussion/question of gender dysphoria below the waist and near-panic attacks.
@juno
That is a fair point, but looking back, I had similar reactions earlier - but the only medical procedures Below the waist were done before puberty and I was pretty much a slab of meat (phimosis surgery, ugh, if you want to know how traumatic that was, I remember pretty much everything to this day, nearly thirty years later).
re: Eleven days. Also a discussion/question of gender dysphoria below the waist and near-panic attacks.
@juno
It's just a mess, really. I think that 23rd will finally falsify all of this. I am looking forward to feeling lighter, better, less dysphoric - and maybe finally return to sports. I miss them.
re: Eleven days. Also a discussion/question of gender dysphoria below the waist and near-panic attacks.
@tagaziel
very soon. :)
re: Eleven days. Also a discussion/question of gender dysphoria below the waist and near-panic attacks.
@juno
It's what keeps me going at the moment. And then nobody will take my transition away from me. :)
re: Eleven days. Also a discussion/question of gender dysphoria below the waist and near-panic attacks.
@tagaziel
sometimes dysphoria and traumareactions merge.
or they are only traumareactions because the dysphoria was there. Hard to tell really.