Disphoria

So I’ve been having a lot of gender feels lately.

Sort of.

I’m not really sure how best to put it. As gender isn’t quite right.

It’s more that I’m having feels about my body being shaped wrong. I mean, I’ve always felt that way, but I’ve never been quite sure how it should be. When I think about myself, my internal self-image of myself, it isn’t always the same. Though it is always consistent in a few ways.

The first of these is that it is nothing like how I look on the outside.

Seriously, I’ve always hated how I look, but the level of discomfort with my body has been growing rapidly over the past few years. Yes some of that is my weight, and my chronic pain, and losing my hair. And some of that is connected to my sense of self-worth around sexuality, and working on coming to terms and understanding my a-sexuality.

But a lot of it as just me. The shape of my face (too round). My height (too short, but also too big). My hands and fingers (blunt and stubby). My body shape (too square). My body hair. My facial hair. My genitals. All of these things are wrong. They are not how I see myself on the inside.

I would say I hate them, that I hate this body. And I do. But mostly I’m too tired to hate anymore. To exhausted by not feeling like me to feel particularly strongly about almost anything.

Anyway. Pulling myself back on topic before I fall too far down that particular hole.

The other consistency is that my internal self image, though fluid, mostly bounces between a few specific things. None of which are really male.

I should be tall and thin and lanky. With long thin fingers. Androgynous features. With no body hair.

I should be strong. Broad shoulders over a somewhat curvy body. Moderate size breasts. And hair that I can play with and style and color.

I should be small and soft.

I don’t know what to do with this dick. I don’t have any particular use for it. I was to rub my clit and feel my insides when I masterbate. When I feel desire, or am horny, it’s in my pelvis not my dick. It’s like it isn’t even really connected to me. And when I play with someone else all my desire is in my hands and my teeth. In my neck and my chest. In my mind, not my crotch.

My breasts have been drawing my attention more and more of late. The hair on them disgusts me. The shape of them is wrong. And they want to be touched, but they feel wrong when I do.

My entire life I’ve wanted to change my body. But I’ve never had a clear idea of what I wanted to change it into. I’ve always wished my body was moldable. A shapeshifter who could become anything I want.

I’ve always felt like a chrysalis waiting to rip open and have the real me come out. I’ve wanted to grab ahold of my seams and rip myself apart so I can crawl out. Hell I literally pull at the back of my head like I’m ripping a seam apart almost everyday as a mental trick to refocus myself when I’m feeling overwhelmed.

Despite all this I’ve never really thought of myself as trans. And only just started thinking about whether that is something I want. I’ve never thought about it partly because I don’t feel like a woman. But I don’t feel like a man. I’ve never felt comfortable in ‘men’s’ spaces. I doubt I’d feel any more comfortable in women’s spaces. But the more I think about it, and the more I try to explore what my sexuality is and who I am, the less comfortable I am with body I am in, and the more I find myself thinking about my body with different parts. It’s been too easy to let it slide. To ignore what I’ve felt about myself or to chalk it up to general depression/self image issues. To let myself live with the privileges I was born with. The privilege to hide who I am and just pass as another “normal” person. I’ve always felt invisible in so many ways, and as depressing as that has been, it’s also easy. Every way I’ve been different my whole life has been invisible. Being pagan. Having chronic joint pain and migraines since I was a kid. Being Bi. Being Poly. Having anxiety and periodic bouts of depression. Being Asexual. Being Gender Fluid, or Non-Binary, or Trans, or what ever this is that I’m not even sure of yet. It’s always been easier to let people see what they wanted to see, rather than letting them see all of me. I’ve always tried to surround myself with people who would choose to see things that were close to the truth. I have even tried showing people a little of who I am on occasion. But almost never all of it. Because it’s easier.

But I’m not sure it is actually easier anymore. It’s been getting more intense. Bubbling up. The discomfort has been breaking through the armor of apathy that I’ve built up. It’s consuming my thoughts and distracting me from the rest of life. Distracting me from the things I care about and that make me happy. I don’t know that I could ever make my body something that makes me happy. But I think it’s time I stopped ignoring it, and started figuring out how to make it something that I don’t hate being trapped in.

But I don’t know how. I’m scared. And tired. And hurting. And really really tired. Tired of hating myself. Tired of being trapped in a body that is wrong.
But short of ripping off my skin and hoping there is more than flesh and blood underneath. I don’t know what to do.