Today, marks 8 months on testosterone. I just increased my dose again a few days ago, so I now have more acne than ever. That's a bother. The rest of it, though.. The rest is wonderful. I'm really impatient with the changes. The downy, almost see-through hairs on my upper lip aren't visible enough, the growing clit is far from big enough, the deepening voice isn't deep enough. I want more, moooore. Yet I also recognize that it's a good thing I can't change everything overnight. This allows my mental image of myself to keep up with the physical reality of how I look.
I used to have trouble staying present in my own body, and would for short bursts struggle to recognize my mirror image as myself. That doesn't happen anymore. On the other hand, my feelings of generalized anxiety are much more present and noticeable these days. That's the cost of less dissociation: I'm so much more in touch with my own feelings now, so I notice more how crap I feel.
For example, I usually don't wear a binder during sex anymore. Having boobs, even visible exposed boobs, doesn't cause me to dissociate. However, I can only bear dysphoria for one half of my body at the time. Meaning that if someone (myself included) are working on my "downstairs", I need to cover the "upstairs" somehow. A binder, a t-shirt, a pillow, anything so the boobs aren't visible. Not doing so causes a tremendous amount of anxiety. Before, I wasn't aware of that anxiety. That's what the dissociation did.
On closer inspection, I guess it's still dissociation."I don't really notice the dysphoria much if only half of my body is in focus".. That's got to be a limited form of dissociation, right? However, while I might be dissociating the dysphoric pain away, I stay me. My gender, my mind. I don't go on autopilot anymore. That's something, at least.
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