Gender Dysphoria, and the Euphoria of Knowing

I hit puberty at 13, I think.  Before that, I was a lanky, long-limbed thing, wild and freckled.  I could slip through the woods of the northwest quickly.  There wasn't an ounce of fat to be found on me.  I was pleased with my scrawny form.  I chased frogs and cats and dogs and played for hours with the neighbor.  I loved baseball.

I was at a week long horse camp when I found blood in my underwear.  Picture if you can, for a moment only, how you might feel if a dreaded transition from 'child' to 'Woman' might play out in such a situation.  To me, it was something that would happen to other people and the stark reality of the pain and mess that was getting my first menstrual cycle put me into shock.  I called my mother in tears, begging her to come get me.  She refused, taking it in stride like the mellow hippie woman she has always been.  The other girls there, most of whom had already started their periods were anything but supportive.  There was a day still until I was able to go home, so I stuffed my skivvies with toilet paper and suffered through.  I don't remember the rest of the week, except the horror of having bloodied paper fall from my pant leg while my dad was picking me up.

From there, it only got more horrifying.  Breasts!  Now, please understand.  On anyone else, I would love my breasts.  They're shapely, lovely, still fairly perky for someone nearing 30.  But they're big.  They're in the way.  They make running a challenge.  Even binding them down chafes.  They're heavy.  They've increased in cup size steadily since they started growing.  Not only that, but my hips swelled.  I still bang into doorways because my mind is navigating for a body much slimmer than I am.  

When I look in a mirror, I see two sacks of fat where my smooth chest should be.  I see mounds and swells where it should be planed and toned.  I see a narrow waist, a stubby torso.  I see massive thighs that should be flat and muscular.  And every time I see that, it makes me sad.  Naked or clothed, the shape of me is wrong.  No amount of working out would make the hips narrow or the breasts go away.  

This is gender dysphoria.  When your mind expects to see something in a mirror that it doesn't see, specifically related to your assigned sex.  It's been a long time of not having a name for it, and of being endlessly depressed because of a line of 'normal' reasons.  Being called 'ma'am'.  Doors being opened for me.  Having to go through life not being able to see my midsection past the bags of fat.  All of those things, and the hundreds of other little things that happen during a day, that confirm that I am not what I feel like I am.  All of those things, like a waterfall, a pile of straw on a camel's back.

Now that I know what it is, now that it has a name, I can fight the dysphoria.  It's no longer inexplicable sadness.  It has reason.  I've been in a great state since I found out, delighted with the identification of what the depression has meant.  It's partially been understanding that there's a name for my feelings, and partially the realization that there are things that can be done to alleviate the discomfort that's been whittling away at me.

The next steps are therapy, hormone therapy, and surgery.