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Disassociative Dysphoria Experiences


Rainy Robin

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Rainy Robin

I just heard about disassociative dysphoria and realized that I think it may describe my experiences pretty well, but I was hoping to hear other people's experiences with it because I can't find that much information about it elsewhere online. Does anyone else feel this word describes their feelings well? 

 

For those that don't know what disassociative dysphoria is, I've heard it described as not feeling present in your body but not having an active discomfort with the way your body looks and how that potentially conflicts with your gender identity. It's also been described as having difficulty recognizing yourself in a mirror, at least in the sense that your reflection does not look as you think it should and doesn't reflect your internal understanding of yourself. This kind of dysphoria falls under the umbrella of gender dysphoria, but is distinct from social and physical dysphorias. 

 

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NickyTannock

@Rainy_Robin I've experienced this for almost my whole life and been ignoring it.

 

When I look at a photo of myself with a group of friends, I don't perceive myself as being in the photo at all, due to the masculinity of the person I am seeing.
For a brief moment, I wonder both why I am missing from the photo, and who the strange man is that's with my friends.
And even after realising that objectively the stranger in the photo is me, I am not able to connect myself to them.

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Grey-Ace Ventura

I relate to that in the sense that whenever I looked in the mirror before I knew I was trans, it felt like I was looking at a doll instead of myself and I couldn't ground myself in the real world. Nowadays, I expect to see a guy in the mirror but I'm always disappointed because I see someone who looks like an androgynous-looking female and it kinda trips me up because I'll think I don't look like that but then I look down at myself and realize that my body does look like what's in the mirror.

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Janus the Fox

I've certainly have had that experience, stronger with the significant weight loss than with the gender.  The 'fat kid' in the pictures is just not me at all to me.

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Yeah, that's been me for a long time. Weirdly enough, it feels like the dissociation is a part of me. Like I want to have a male body and connect to reality but I don't wanna truly lose that dissociation. I don't really know why. I think it's because it makes me feel in control. I can just leave shit and not have to deal with a body. There's some things I miss about being female too I guess. I felt more balanced and comfortable despite the dysphoria. My touch repulsion did wonders as I'm bad at emotions and affection. Apparently I'm a much more affectionate person than I realized and that shit really gets into my head. Whatever.

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I looked into dissociative disorders because of this. The mirror thing kinda freaks me out tbh. Sometimes, not really that often, I'll look in the mirror and be like, huh, this is my physical being. I'm tied to this thing. I'm piloting this body and only sometimes does it feel like me. What really gets me is if I'm looking at myself and between on blink and the next get into this state. 

 

I had described it as my consciousness floating (but overlapping) my physical brain. I get uncomfortable if I'm solidly anchored in reality/my body for too long. I get overstimulated. My adhd probably also plays a role but with everything somehow everything is fake and real at the same time.

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Rainy Robin
3 hours ago, MichaelTannock said:

I've experienced this for almost my whole life and been ignoring it.

Yep, same here. I guess I didn't realize how to articulate those feelings until I found the term "disassociative dysphoria." Before I knew what it was, I had thought for awhile that maybe I was experiencing intense body image issues that were unrelated to gender dysphoria. I'm not sure what to do with the knowledge that those feelings are actually dysphoria, but it's somewhat comforting to know there's at least a word for the experience. 

 

2 hours ago, Grey-Ace Ventura said:

I relate to that in the sense that whenever I looked in the mirror before I knew I was trans, it felt like I was looking at a doll instead of myself and I couldn't ground myself in the real world.

Wow, this describes my experience really well too, thanks for sharing! Did you find that transitioning alleviated this feeling somewhat? 

 

7 minutes ago, ReyGraves said:

I looked into dissociative disorders because of this. The mirror thing kinda freaks me out tbh.

Same here. I looked into dissociative disorders awhile ago because I experience a much milder version of the looking into the mirror and not connecting with your reflection thing, but it seems like to get a medical diagnosis of dissociative disorder there are other criteria you also have to meet that don't totally align with how I experience the dysphoria. It seems like the disorder and the dysphoria terms are separate, but there isn't much information out online about the disassociative dysphoria term (at least in comparison to the disassociative disorder term). 

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2 minutes ago, Rainy_Robin said:

Same here. I looked into dissociative disorders awhile ago because I experience a much milder version of the looking into the mirror and not connecting with your reflection thing, but it seems like to get a medical diagnosis of dissociative disorder there are other criteria you also have to meet that don't totally align with how I experience the dysphoria. It seems like the disorder and the dysphoria terms are separate, but there isn't much information out online about the disassociative dysphoria term (at least in comparison to the disassociative disorder term). 

Yeah! I looked over diagnostic criteria and I never fit enough of them or thought my experience wasn't "extreme" enough. 

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Grey-Ace Ventura
3 hours ago, Rainy_Robin said:

Wow, this describes my experience really well too, thanks for sharing! Did you find that transitioning alleviated this feeling somewhat? 

I haven't transitioned yet actually. It was freaky not knowing what was causing the disassociating, but now that I know what it is, I know I'm a man and I know I'm also looking at a man in the mirror, but I still don't totally believe my reflection because I still don't look the way I feel inside yet. Weirdly though, I can now identify my eyes as mine in the mirror, but nothing else. It's probably because I just love eyes in general and when I realized I'm trans, I kinda stopped wishing my eyes were blue and accepted that they're brown and I actually find them quite pretty, and they match my internal image of myself, while the blue eye thing was just one of the ways I'd subconsciously want to change my image to cope with not looking the way I want.

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Rainy Robin

@Grey-Ace Ventura That's a good point about things getting a little "easier" to deal with once you have a word for the feeling, just because knowing its cause makes it possible to describe the feeling better and can help you see that it's not being caused by something else (like more general body image issues). 

 

That's good to hear about your relationship to your eyes too! I think I experience something similar, at least in the sense that I can identify my eyes as my own without that strange detached feeling I usually get when looking at the rest of my face in the mirror. Maybe it has something to do with the "eyes are the windows to the soul" saying, however that goes.

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The intensity of gender dysphoria can definitely cause you to disassociate, and I've been through it myself. The strongest it has ever manifested was when I was sitting on the floor of my bathroom, after having a giant mental breakdown due to a family member deliberately misgendering and deadnaming me. I had been crying for about half an hour. Then, suddenly, it stopped. My tears weren't flowing, my face was expressionless, and I didn't feel that I could control my body. I didn't feel present. It was like I was simultaneously far away, and locked inside this apathetic state. I couldn't move, I couldn't cry, I couldn't speak. My heart was hammering, I was sweating profusely, but (though I could objectively feel all these sensations) I didn't feel as though they were happening to me, because I wasn't part of my own body. It took several hours to go away. That's the most intense episode of disassociation I've ever been through.

 

Another time, something very traumatising and dysphoria-inducing happened (which I won't get into, because it'd probably be triggering to others), and I reacted so strongly that I actually lost consciousness. I passed out from the trauma. Even when I was in the hospital afterwards, I didn't feel present in my body, and it took a few days for that feeling to go away.

 

When you're talking about disassociation, be careful not to self-diagnose with Dissociative Identity Disorder, because (as has been noted up above), that's a very separate thing. It is rare and very complex. People with DID experience a fragmentation of self, sensations of floating above their body or not being present/able to control their actions, and gaps in their memory.

 

Just because I have disassociated due to dysphoria and trauma does not mean I have Dissociative Identity Disorder. Disassociation can occur because of other mental illnesses or trauma (for example, gender dysphoria, in my case), but that doesn't mean you have DID.

 

I would highly recommend therapy as a way of dealing with this. If you do actually have DID, it would be useful to figure out how much that identity disorder is affecting you, and the way you view your body. But, if it's dysphoria which is the root cause of these episodes, you need to direct your attention there, and figure out how to alleviate symptoms.

 

If you are going blank while looking at your reflection, try to interact with your appearance more. In my case, I started to bind my chest, dress in a masculine way, cut my hair, and own my presentation. I started to familiarise myself with my own body, and I started taking regular pictures of myself, and filming video diaries. This helped me as I transitioned, because I fostered a more involved and healthy relationship with my corporal existence (sounds corny, but it's true). When you're suffering from a dysphoric separation of self and external presentation, you have to actively work to align the two.

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dissociation is pretty big in my life so I'd be lying if I said I didn't relate o-o

 

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Rainy Robin
17 hours ago, tony the trans man said:

When you're talking about disassociation, be careful not to self-diagnose with Dissociative Identity Disorder, because (as has been noted up above), that's a very separate thing. It is rare and very complex. People with DID experience a fragmentation of self, sensations of floating above their body or not being present/able to control their actions, and gaps in their memory.

 

Just because I have disassociated due to dysphoria and trauma does not mean I have Dissociative Identity Disorder. Disassociation can occur because of other mental illnesses or trauma (for example, gender dysphoria, in my case), but that doesn't mean you have DID

Thanks for point this out. It's super important to not equate the two and to avoid self-diagnosing in any situation, especially with these kinds of things where therapy with a licensed professional is so important. 

 

And thanks for sharing your experience and advice. I know these things are hard to talk about but it's so helpful for people to hear these stories and know they're not alone and can get help to feel better. 

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