Panic Attack

[banshee1067]

I'm breathing heavy and keep grasping myself...I'll grab my forearm in a grip and fold in on myself. What's happening to me? I started sweating all over and now here I sit, frustrated, wiping sweat off my face as I type and try to stave this off

Comments

[eriktrips]

I can really only say two things. one is that I've been there, helplessly raging at the very flesh of my being and I know how hard it is and I hope you make it out without damage

[georgia_thomson]

to be honest, i know some very attractive trans women taller than you, with similar build to your userpic. it's all about self acceptance, to hell with society, adn what other people want / like. once you get your own head round yourself, you'll find someone who likes you for you. yeah, i know, sounds like psychobabble type nonsense but meh. you've been told now, by someone who's there right now, doing the same thing you're doing. listen, or don't up to you.

[banshee1067]

When I say I would look ridiculous as a woman, I'm not just speaking for society. I will admit that I'm not "ugly" as I tend to say in my darker moments, but I'm realistic about the limits of my looks. I would never make a convincing woman, and to me, there's not much point in becoming a spectacle that I myself wouldn't find attractive.

I've accepted that I'll never be female. I can deal with that, I think, but what infuriates me is that not only am I not female, but if I'm attractive at all, it's in an overtly masculine way. On one hand, when a girl does mention that I'm big, etc., I know it's generally meant as a compliment, but since I don't value masculinity in the same way she does, it only makes me feel worse.

[overgrownpath]

Reading camille paglia's Sexual Personae really made me look differently at society and beauty and such. She tries to give the true, raw criticism of high-brow stuff, famous poets, artists, sculptors. Starting with the ancient egyptians at a whole theory on western society, expression etc.
I only dabble with ideas of femininity, but I feel like if you had these ideas I'd been given, you could feel more inspired and thus happier with how you look. The ancient greeks did everything they could to swerve AWAY from anything female and what they associated femaleness with. But take Michalengelo for instance, the gay sculptor and painter who did the sistine chapel. His very male, muscular, broad figures ooze with curving femininity.
This is really just a tiny fragment, Camille's a genius (oh yeah and Michalengelo too).

[banshee1067]

I'd be interested in reading it. I get a lot of books from the library, but since I'm in the middle of relocating, I've had to put my reading on the back burner unless I decided to camp out at a Barnes & Noble (not a bad idea)...I presume this book would be in the Women's Studies section. I loved Susan Faludi's "Stiffed"...ever read it

[eriktrips]

it is true that there are things you can't change, although if it helps, you will start shrinking soon. I'm 45 and have already lost 1"--I think perhaps I should be taking calcium.

seriously, though, there are things that you can't change, but there are things that you can change and as long as you are in this desperate frame of mind you can't see them and/or can't see what they might actually be worth. that's why I think someone to talk to face-to-face, who has experience with severe bodily dysphoria and an objective view might be able to help you out of your despair and into a more proactive stance towards your physical being. I understand the dysphoria: I've been there and I understand your pain and anger but many have found ways to live with what they can't change while changing what they can and want to change--even 6'3" bald hairy guys. I know a number who have found happier ways to be

[morbioid]

A support group is not going to help me. Sitting around with a bunch of other losers whining about how unfair their own lives are is only going to make me feel worse by association.

Oh, nice.