Technically speaking...

Technically speaking, gender dysphoria could be considered an illness or a condition. It tells your brain that something is wrong with your gender identity or role and it must be tended to. 

This is not meant to denigrate being transgender only that it forms part of the profile. The person feels somehow stuck between two poles until something is done to address the incongruence. 

Every response will and should be different. 

For me it was about attaining as much  authenticity as possible while at the same time avoiding medical transition which was ill-advised as per my endocrinologist. Also I wasn't entirely convinced that this approach would take care of everything. 

I took note that many people who transition continue to suffer with bouts of dysphoria even years after transition. 

Splitting myself into two halves for years was less than ideal but worked because it felt mandatory and I was busy enough with work and kids to navigate the psychology. 

My life became an exercise in dysphoria management.

However dysphoria seems to worsen with age which forces you to ramp up your game. The psychology must be worked on constantly particularly when life distractions are mostly removed. 

I have watched plenty of regret videos which have shown me that despite being a small percent of transitioners, there are cases where complications have soured their experience. They don't necessarily revert but end up in a limbo state where they must come to resignation. 

Because dysphoria is graded it presents different levels of challenge for people. The most severe forms seem to be destined for medical means but even there some have chosen a hybrid approach. For example, they may have opted for FFS and HRT but no other interventions. 

People who are older have the most trouble converting their psychology because their indoctrination around gender was so pervasive. They feel stuck because life decisions made to escape their feelings now end up as large obstacles as they come to understand themselves with age. 

Some may have gone through a "crossdresser" phase (forgive the older term) only to realize that the roots went far deeper. Regretably life works like peeling an onion where discoveries are made slowly over time. 

The way dysphoria is dealt with today avoids years of silent suffering but risks putting trans youth on a path they later realize wasn't for them. Fortunately we seem to have developed enough safeguards to largely prevent irreversible changes. 

The gender critical movement paints all this as a zero sum game where regret cases are pointed to as examples of all transgender people. This is of course false because there are a myriad of success stories however the difficulty still exists in finding a customized solution for each person. 

In the best of cases, a solution is found which is free from comparison and full of personal confidence through avoiding the societal poison every transgender person is almost invariably exposed to.