gender is complicated.

[Littlewidow]

so... the reason I'm here. *deep breath*

 

For clarity's sake, I am assigned female at birth (AFAB), but currently identify my gender as nonbinary. It really started for me back in late June/early July of last year. I had just started a new job and I had to dress in a different way and.... I just snapped. I had a breakdown one night over the fact that I had connections to womanhood, but I truly deep down didn't feel like a girl in that moment. I described that feeling as "wanting to be a girl, but not." So... I opened the can of worms, despite knowing that I wasn't in an accepting environment and didn't have many options. I started talking with my partners (I'm poly) about it all, and they instantly switched to the preferred name and pronouns. The problem was... I hated my body. So I started binding. in the middle of a Texas summer. it... it felt right and it felt good. Then came my hair. I didn't chop most of it off until August, and while it's only a bob, it does help.

 

I slowly started coming out as nonbinary, because it does kind of fit my situation. it's not a permanent word, but people are pushy and i have to tell them something. I'm completely out at my college (Which is an entirely DIFFERENT issue that I don't think I should get into here yet), and I recently came out at work. My parents... know (I live at home and my parents are pushy and noticed when I changed how i dressed and acted), but they refuse to accept.

 

So why am I even spelling all of this out?

 

Well, over the span of the last two weeks the dysphoria has been next to unbearable, to the point where I started dissociating at work when i would pass by a mirror. I spent most of Friday night questioning if I was really in the right body or if I was just inhabiting it like a ghost possessing a person. But... since Friday I feel good. and also like maybe I was... wrong? And it feels like there's a disconnect when people call me by my preferred name, versus what my parents named me/call me. Nothing feels right really anymore. Am... I wrong? Was this all just a phase like my mother swears? Am I just having a good spell? My dysphoria has been kind of cyclical up until now. I don't know and I don't want to step on any toes I just am genuinely confused and frustrated and don't even know what I am or who I am anymore. I feel slight connections to masculinity, and have always felt more comfortable expressing myself in more of a tomboy/traditionally masculine way. I still feel kind of that way. but... i still feel slight connections to womanhood too. I don't MIND my reproductive system, and I do want to carry a child one day. but other than that... traditionally feminine stuff like dresses and make up hasn't and doesn't entice me. It all feels like an act that I put on to please others. I'm just.... lost. Any and all direction is welcome I guess...

[SeeYa]

It looks like no one else has replied yet... I'm not exactly the best at this sort of thing but I'll give it a go.
I can't give an example of personal experience, but learning about yourself is a life long journey. It's okay to not be sure, and to question what you think you know about yourself. At some point or another something clicks, sometimes small, sometimes big. The more things that click the more you learn and know about yourself.
I know that boils down to "wait and see" and it's not all that helpful. But don't give up. Life is to be lived however you live it, and at the end of the day, only you can say who you are.
I don't think you have to worry about if it is a phase or not. If it is, then once its done its done, and you learn something about yourself along the way. If it isn't, then you get to learn a whole lot of new things while learning more about yourself. Either way, it is not an experience wasted, but valuable time put towards your future, whatever form that may take =)
 

Sadly, I cannot give you anything on dysphoria. Dysphoria is personal to each individual, its triggers different and end results varied (but unpleasant in any case). I can only note that most dysphoric peeps find ways to reduce things that make them feel dysphoria, for example: binding  ones chest or shaving ones arms/legs.