Sometimes highly dysphoric people will refrain from cross gender expression because it aggravates their dysphoria too much. When you are able to catch a small glimpse of what life could be like, it can send you into a spiral of depressive thoughts. For the longest time, I kept my cross gender expression to times when I absolutely needed relief which amounted to a pressure valve being released. I was then able once again to put away thoughts for another few months.
It wasn't until many years later that I realized I couldn't carry on like this and, once on my own, took the risk of seeing what living more as Joanna might feel like. Not so unexpectedly, it had the effect of calming my dysphoria by not allowing it to build to a crescendo before alleviating it. Of course the risk of my approach is that if you are in a situation where you cannot increase your frequency of expression, you will be faced with the ensuing frustration.The more dysphoric the person is, the more difficult closing that door to expression will be and risk leading to worsened gender expression deprivation anxiety (thank you Anne Vitale).
I had to "pressure valve" it for 34 years during my denials. All while not understanding why. Thankful those days (and feeling the accompanying shame) are behind me now.
ReplyDelete-Christina
I am glad that you are in a good place and using a measured approach :)
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