Being Compassionate To Yourself Involves Making It A Discipline To Do The Things That You Love, No Matter

My Cat, Keiko Hiratsuka Moore.

As a butch who struggles w dysphoria, the temptation to wear compression tanks, get a double mastectomy, take just a lil bit of T to try to get some kind of results that just might last afterwards, even though I know it’s detrimental to my health- it’s crushing sometimes.

And I do have to put myself first and distance myself from butches who encourage doing these things. Because seeing that makes that little voice go, “oh yeah, look how easy that is, you could definitely pull that off no problem.” And no.

I want to fight that unhealthy part of me. I want to accept my body as it is. Breasts and hips and all.

Enough is enough. Sometimes we have to protect ourselves and other women struggling with dysphoria by standing firm in what we believe and keeping our boundaries up.

I know there’s a lot of overlap in the butch and transmasc communities. But I have no interest in interacting with dysphoric women who promote needless hormones and surgeries or harmful practices like binding. It isn’t a reflection on those women’s worth or value- it’s a protective reaction and sometimes fierce anger that more and more women like me are transitioning.

I’m not gonna do it.

I’m going to learn how to live with myself the way I am. I’m not going to lie to myself and say that taking testosterone and getting unnecessary surgeries is okay or something to even be desired.

And it’s an uphill battle every day, but I know I’m not alone, and that I’ll get to the point where I can stop wishing my body and voice were something they aren’t.

The absolute worst part of being detransitioned is having absolutely no idea what to say to anyone to save them from what I went through.

Being a teenager and not caring about long-term detriments, thinking others' experiences don't apply to me, being nebulously lost and angry, seems to be universal.

I have thought on it for years now and I cannot imagine what anyone could have said or done to stop me. I don't know that it's like this for everyone, but I think I had to live this experience to know that it doesn't work. To know WHY it doesn't work. I just wish I could translate my journey into some profound scrap of advice for even one person.

You are someone. You may not know where you fit in, what your future holds, but you are someone. You will always matter.

as much some folks wanna think it so, my complicated relationship with my gender doesn’t make me trans.

do you know any ways that alleviate dysphoria without transitioning? i kinda just woke up from my trans nightmare. i'm female if ur wondering. if you don't know, could you redirect me to a blog that does?

Hey anon, so, i had written down my own advice, and also asked my friends, many of whom are detrans and have suffered from dysphoria.

But first I want to say that I'm glad you woke up. It's hard to leave and change a mindset that felt right with our feelings even if not with our common sense.

Forst are my friends' advices. I'm copying it as they are, without paraphrasing (only certain replacement, [like this]. My own advice is below my friends', as i believe theirs to be more experienced.

Without further ado, here are all the advices:

——

— Hello!

It's been a LONG time since I've experienced dysphoria(I detransitioned).

It feels like your mind doesn't belong in the current body you're in and that you want to just rip [your] skin off. (Mental health issue)

For me, I wished I could just close my eyes and never wake up. Or be "reborn" a male instead of female and just some...other thoughts along the lines.

How did I "get over it"?

I...guess I surrounded myself with more positive influences. I grew up in an abusive household that held sexist views. When I left, I could think clearly for myself.

I suppose my suggestion for her would be to try and find some positive influences(ex. Could be as simple as hangout out with loved ones, finding role models,etc) in her life and think critically(ex. "Why would you feel better if you transitioned to male?")

I realized I wanted to transition to escape my life...and also because I had internalise misogyny to where I did not think I was "allowed" to do certain things because I was born a female...

— Something to have her consider is that what she likes, and who she is doesn’t change what she is. She is female. A woman. A girl. Zero percent of her outside world or her mind can impact this. I hear a lot of young women trans [recte transition] because they feel like they enjoy masculine things. Well, if a woman does it it’s a women’s thing. Gender tells us women should only pursue and enjoy certain things and not others. This is just simply, False with a capital F.

Another help is recognizing that the way porn and indeed most media presents women to the world is also False. That is not what and how sex is. You don’t have to like it or accept it to be a woman. It is at odds with womanhood.

To reconnect and learn to love your body and accept it, a trick I learned a long time back is to focus on what your body does for you. Rather than how it looks while it does it.

Look at your bones and muscles working together so you can walk and stand and pick things up. Dance. Run. Your throat and lungs do this cool thing where you can speak. Sing. Your heart, keeps your body supplied with nutrients from your digestive system. Digestive system all on its own without any prompting, turns food into fuel for this amazing robot suit that is your body. Brain can interpret every single impulse from every nerve in your body. In real time. It allows you to connect with the outside world and experience it. But you also get to control it. Meditation, therapy exercises, physical exercise, these things have an impact on your brain. And you choose to do them.

Your body and your experience in it is really remarkable.

Thighs aren’t fat. They’re strong for carrying you around. Arms aren’t skinny. They are perfect for hugging loved ones. Eyes aren’t too small, they allow you to see the world around you. Focusing on what the body does takes that focus away from what it doesn’t look like. Breasts? Nourish new life in a way nothing else can. Don’t want children. That’s ok. Just recognize what your breasts can do. They don’t have to do it. Uterus and ovaries? Literally creates a human life from two single cells. You have the power of creation in side you. Whether you use it or not. Period? This amazing way your body protects itself from non viable pregnancies and keeps your body safe. Periods are the ultimate cleanse. And your body does it for you. All on its own.

These are the thoughts that help me deal with having a female body and accepting it.

— The thing that helped me most was radical body acceptance. Just 'this is me and I accept that I am the way I am'. Idk how effective it would be for that individual but it was foundational for me overcoming my dysphoria

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My advice:

~ it's sometimes impossible to look at the mirror. The body feels bad and ugly and overall just wrong. But it's ours. It's ours to keep, and not to destroy. Expose yourself to yourself gradually. Especially the parts that make you at most unease. Treat it like a phobia, or some forms of allergies. Gradual exposure can help. First, love the parts you can't see — your heart, your lungs, dammit, tell your tendons you love them (!) because they're part of you.

Slowly reach parts you feel most dysphoric about. You'll already know how to love your other parts. Your hands that let you touch loved ones, hold them, rub a cute cat or dog. Your mouth and your stomach that tear apart these nutrients into the most basic units. Your skin that protects you and that lets you feel sunlight and raindrops. And then, when you know how to love these more or less basic parts of you, reach the complex ones. You don't need reasons at some point, but you have the love to give and it's enough. You don't need any reason besides it's yours.

~ i suffered (and still sometimes relapse) from body dysmorphia, and well, music and self reminders helped me a lot. I drew on my skin with pens and sharpies, soccer teams logos, random lyrics. My reminder to myself, before i started giving myself good reminders was "don't fear death"" but to not fear death,,, i needed no more reminders of that. then I realized, i can remind myself more important things, of better things. Birthdays, my favorite teams' wins, my most hated teams' worst losses. Then it went to 1238 "grammar teacher said something grammatically wrong", "x mathematical axiom", drew emojis and flowers. I did so to remind me to smile, to breath clean air (as clean as possible at least). At this time of self isolation, you can leave the notes at your house. Sticky note with "the only parabola that matters is the smile" or some other body positive puns. Dysphoria is a different hatred of your body, but all self hatred can be fought with self love.

~ a feeling I still feel a lot is hat i don't deserve to live, i only take too much space. It's what brought me so quickly into dysmorphia. Try to find what brought you to dysphoria pull out the source, or face it so you know how it looks like when it sneaks up to you. Recognition and acknowledgment means you can deal with it better as it won't shock you. You'd be able to throw it out before it attacks you.

~ surround yourself with positive influences, and also avoid negative influences. If your close friend group is sexist and/misogynistic, then distance yourself from them. A lot of the self hatred comes from what we've been taught for years about ourselves. Female role models, positivity, cute little notes, etc, and surround yourself with actual body positivity.

~ creativity: Maybe start a cute bullet journal or something similar. Create things and surround yourself with your own creations. Bullet journals are a fun way to keep you busy while also help you be more productive in school and/or life. You can fill it with quotes and pretty pictures and fun doodles.

~ you and your body are not different entities. It's part of you, part of your life since birth, especially because you're female. It feels a bit degrading at first, but in reality, we are our bodies. When were stressed, our body reacts physiologically. When we see someone we love, our heart beats faster.

I remember reading something another woman wrote, saying her dysphoria is at its worst during her period, she got panic attacks every time she started getting it. We're told that our period is what makes us gross but also what makes us women/feminine, but it only makes us women, not feminine, and it's part of our physiology, it made us have lower social standing but only because men decided so. Some women don't get periods, but all those who get periods are women (and I'm not talking about TiM "periods" but real ones). It's one of the parts that can be the hardest to embrace, but it's also a reminder that we, women, are actually the most ideal creation of mother nature regarding humans. Long lasting, unrelenting, strong and (usually) the actual creating power. We're the power of creation as a means for creation, and men? Most of them only create as a means for destruction.

~ healthy lifestyle: a lot of things start looking better when we start a healthier lifestyle, especially life. Add a salad to one of the meals

~ lastly but most helpful for me was writing all my negative feelings down and then just tearing the paper apart, and afterwards throw it to different trashcans, like you'd do with an old credit card. It helped me during some of my most depressive episodes.

can ppl like……… stop having a concept of me in their head ……… no object permanence here…..i only exist when im right in front of you….. no memories allowed. thx for understanding. 

”Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.” ~ Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart … Artist ~ Carl Larsson

no offense but it’s so much better (and healthier) to try to love the body you were born with and to examine the roots of your dysmorphia instead of internalizing obscure gender identities and making those your whole personality