Euphoria vs Dysphoria
I find it a little hard to keep up here because writing everything up for Facebook, and then copying it here and to Livejournal manually, takes time, and I don't always do it at the same time even though I keep wanting to. At one point, I was thinking about learning enough Javascript to write something that will automate this for me, but I didn't follow through. (Though I did end up sort of pivoting to learning enough C++ to write LED control code for my computer case lights!)
Anyway, some stuff has been happening!
Someone posted a meme that I related very strongly too and I wrote about it. The meme text said:
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In text attributed to blueberrygoth, it reads "ive known so many "cis" people who've told me they thought they might be trans or nonbinary but they don't really experience dysphoria so they felt like werent allowed to call themselves trans. how many people have had to live their lives in the closet because they were told they werent in enough pain"
Then, follow up text attributed to thatse-corvid-core-babey reads "i've said it once and i'll say it again. EUPHORIA is the greatest identifier of a trans person. not dysphoria. dysphoria is hard to define and thus it's hard to regulate what is and isn't dysphoria. but euphoria? that feeling u get when someone uses the right pronouns? that "i can't contain my smile" sort of joy? THATS what the trans experience is all about. that's what unites us"
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I wish someone had told me this 25 years ago. I was too disassociated to feel much dysphoria, but the euphoria was *always* there. I just didn't understand.
I do have dysphoria now that I understand who I am and I feel the ways my body doesn't match. But the absolute delirious happiness I've found since consciously living as the correct sex is worth it a thousand times over.
While I was out at Costco yesterday getting my prescriptions, I talked to the pharmacist about getting the two accounts I had there (from two different doctors prescribing with two different names) combined. He confirmed which name I want to use and said "I'll get that taken care of for you Meg." Literally, the whole rest of the day, I was having flashes of joy about him calling me Meg and seeing me as a woman. As I drifted off to sleep that night, I spent a little while saying to myself, out loud, "I'm Meghan. Meghan. Meghan. I'm Meghan," and I simply don't have words for the joy I feel just knowing that and seeing that other people know that.