How do folks separate feelings of dysphoria and feelings stemming from low self-esteem or poor body image? Sometimes I'm not sure what it is that I'm feeling and I find it difficult to distinguish between and navigate within those feelings.
I kinda alluded to that sort of thing with the songs that I posted in the good night thread.
The first one, invent yourself, you don't have to do much if anything to your look, but you invent yourself inside as a way to let that shine through.
If you can do something about what you perceive as that thing you have to change in looks, then do ii, just do it and work towards it.
Take the paths that get you there as best you can, you'll find the way.
Dysphoria is a tricky thing to describe and even harder to say what you should do, ans self esteem can play a big part in it.
To separate the two is one of the ways to invent yourself, take the good things and the things you can work on and head in that direction.
Don't let self esteem issues take control of that, in fact just don't let it take control of any of your life, ball it up and throw it away.
To be able to navigate through these, you need to take the control they have on you away, slap that shit down, make it back up and give you room to grow.
Years ago I lost it, really lost it, overdosed a couple times, got caught, had to spend time in psych units, some a few times.
I had the one last really bad one when I got caught overdosing on haldol, like kill an elephant overdose, military medic busted me.
I don't remember any of it, got ect'd and lost even more.
But that ate away at me at the same time I was doing something about being NB, so the self esteem was truly in the shitter.
I had to work my way through it, one one hand, low dose helped a lot, I had weekly therapist talks, monthly psychologist, gender Dr for the low dose.
I was lucky to get all of that lined up, and it took a couple years to do it, but that was my path to lessening dysphoria, I had to make that work still.
The self esteem became a thing that dragged my thoughts down on a daily basis, sometimes it was an all day battle to just not think about it.
I eventually did get rid of a lot of it, and the thing that I practised with it was to just tell myself I didn't need the crap from it anymore.
I had to just think it through and then take it down in my thoughts, it's not important enough for me to waste my time on it, that worked and still does.
Those times in life where you did something the wrong way and you just go over it and over it in different ways trying to justify it, don't waste time on it.
Self esteem issues are a two way thing, there are more times where you did things the right way, said the right things, did the right things...
Make it a habit to write those down and go back and look at them as you need to, don't journal about the shit day you had, it sticks in your head when you do.
Write about the good thing that you can see and remember, there are a lot more than you think, but the bad esteem sets the mood and covers them up.
You have to work at flipping that over into life is a wonder to behold kind of thing, no matter how trivial it is, take the moment to focus on the good.
You have to work at separating the two things, take dysphoria and work on it, and realize that it isn't the source of your self esteem, good or bad.
If you can't do that, then your dysphoria is going to drag your down by caving in the the low self esteem, when it has very little to nothing to do with it.
It's an issue that you are working on to take care of it, always the fight to get it taken care of, but when you do, it isn't going to boost your self esteem.
Only your attitude is going to change that and once the dysphoria is shoved back or gone, it isn't magically going to make life better.
It's a body issue and is something that you can take care of, you have the paths to take.
Poor self esteem is a mindfuck of a thing going on, it isn't about the now, the real, it is just a pile of bullshit in life that you let accumulate in front of you.
You have to get rid of it a shovelful at a time, lol, you need to clear the path, you need to let yourself just let go of it once and for all, it's in the past, won't come back.
Look at the things that are good every day, take the time to just see them, they are all around all of us, all the time, recognize the significance they have.
The bad attitude is the one that won't let you move forward or at the least make it difficult, but it is nothing more than the past getting in the way of the future.
You don't have to do things to make yourself be happy, if your mind is full of poor self esteem, you won't be able to at least not much.
But side step that crap and step on out and into your future, it really is full of wondrous things that you need to start seeing, because that's how you should be when others see you, they should see a person full of life and not the dragged down emotional wreck that the past has got you chained down with, be better, always.
You separate the two because you need to in order to get rid of the dysphoria, it's something you can work on physically, low self esteem is a mind game that you can easily win, stick with it, just keep on the paths that are going to take you to where you want to be, might take a bunch of them and it always does, but you do get to see and even be a part of all the good things that are on those paths waiting for you, they are just around the curve up ahead, step forward.
