Dysphoria and Euphoria

I was roughly reminded recently why I don’t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!

So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn’t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite… dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?

But I had to go clothes shopping, and this led directly to thinking about what clothes I currently wear and what clothes I want to wear and how I look and…

Well. It was. A very bad several days after that. I found some shoes that look fantastic but they had none in my size, so that was quite disappointing. But my mood was not good for a bit. The upshot is this also led to me thinking about how to actually fix the issue.

I have a few ideas so far. As far as actual clothing… I have a vague sense of how I’d like to look. Part of that is not really all that viable as I don’t really spend all that much time existing in the world outside of work so I don’t have an opportunity to actually dress that way in public. But then again… I can just dress for myself in private? That’s not really something I have ever done, my work clothes tend to be what I wear at home as well, I don’t swap clothes when I get home, but there’s no reason I can’t start doing that.

For shoes, I definitely have ideas there, but I need to find some in my size.

But those are larger purchases and larger projects. There are other things I’d like to change about my presentation that would probably be far more expensive (facial feminization surgery maybe?) or take a lot more time (regularly hitting the gym). None of that is going to be Fast And Easy Fixes. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it, but to alleviate the gender dysphoria I do also need to find changes that can be done more quickly.

Y’all. I forgot how much gender euphoria just painting my nails can give. It’s been years since I last painted my nails and I am dyspraxic so it’s definitely a bit clumsy, but it still came out pretty good and I haven’t been this happy about the way I look in so long.

I have a few other ideas for relatively quick, cheap changes I can make. I used to have gauge earrings. I want to have that again, so I need to get a taper kit (and hope my ears don’t need to be re-pierced). I have a keychain that recently broke to my dismay, but I think it can be repurposed into a very cool earring. It is a tad large but it’s worth a shot. Worst case we just repair it to make it work as a keychain again.

I’m also looking into finally getting my hair dyed again. Not certain what color I want to go with. My roommate suggested a vibrant purple which could look good. If I wanted to go for the cliche, I could do blue hair to go with my pronouns.

I have also loosely considered makeup? I feel like it would be a sensory nightmare so probably not, but if anyone knows of a sensory friendly line of makeup please let me know on the socials.

All this to say a few bad days led to a lot of ideas to help me feel better and more comfortable in my own body again. I don’t know why I stopped caring. I do know that it definitely hurt me and I want to fix it.

It’s been a weird one lately! Just doing my best to survive as the world burns down around us!