A personal journey of coping with gender dysphoria and the emotional weight of not aligning with my own body.
I don’t feel at home in my body. I never did.
I live with gender dysphoria—the intense distress that arises from the disconnect between my biological sex and my true sense of gender.
When my dysphoria is under control, it takes the form of fleeting, intrusive thoughts. A friend reposts an Instagram story, and I click to see who shared it. I see a girl in a striking red dress.
“Why can’t that be me?” I think, and the thought disappears almost instantly.
But when my dysphoria peaks, it becomes more than mental anguish. It’s physical. My skin feels too tight, my organs compressed. I feel trapped in a body that is not mine, and I desperately want to leave it behind.
For the first time, I’m sharing my experience with gender dysphoria and how I cope with it. I’ve never told my family or most friends, though they wouldn’t be surprised. If you can relate, I hope this piece helps you express what words often fail to capture. If you don’t, I hope you treat me and others like me with kindness.
Part 1: I Long to Be Beautiful
I long to be beautiful. To be regal. To be vibrant. At Indian weddings, women wear brilliant, colorful outfits and dazzling jewelry that embodies glamour and magnificence.
Then there are the men, dressed identically: a veshti and a shirt. Where is the color? Where’s the sparkle? I look at the men around me and think, “I am one of them.”
But I don’t want to be one of them. When my dysphoria flares, the only thought in my mind is, “Get me out of this body.”
Clothing and jewelry trigger my dysphoria, but I’ve learned to cope by detaching these items from their contexts. By viewing them as mere objects, I can reflect on why they trigger me without letting them overwhelm me.
Dysphoria is a powerful, intangible force. But understanding its origins helps diminish its control over me.
Part 2: On My Worst Days
On my hardest days, I’m consumed by thoughts of how I can look in the mirror and see a body that’s not male. I can transition, but no matter what I do, my body will never truly reflect that of a woman.
At best, it will only be an approximation—a constant reminder of how close yet unattainable it is, which is more agonizing than staying as I am.
I don’t believe in an afterlife or reincarnation. Yet, at my lowest, I often think, “If I take my own life, maybe I’ll come back as a woman.”
It’s a terrifying thought.
Dysphoria for me is linked to stillness—remaining immobile and letting the discomfort of the feelings wash over me. It’s one of the healthier coping strategies I’ve learned. It’s less destructive than acting on the impulse to escape by hurting myself.
Being still means surrendering to my dysphoria. I let it engulf me. I don’t fight it; I accept it.
It could take minutes or hours, but eventually, I learn to accept it as valid and real, no matter how painful. Then, I gradually pull myself out of the spiral.
This is known as “radical acceptance”—acknowledging what I cannot change and learning not to judge myself for feeling this way. Instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” I choose to say, “I am experiencing these feelings, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
By accepting my dysphoria without self-judgment, I reduce the suffering that comes with it, even if the pain remains.
Part 3: I Dream of Disappearing
I dream of disappearing. It’s a fixation.
It makes sense, considering I sometimes want to ‘leave my body’ and, at other times, feel the urge to ‘unalive myself.’ Both are forms of escape, but one is impossible, and the other is dangerously unhealthy.
Fortunately, I’ve found an escape that works: driving.
When I need to escape, I get into my mum’s car and just drive. I let instinct and muscle memory take over. At night, when the world is dark and the harsh daylight is gone, I see spots of lights moving toward me before disappearing behind. It’s mesmerizing. I get lost in it.
Wherever I end up, that’s where I’m meant to be. Without thinking, I find myself at Marina Barrage, Marina South Pier, the open-air car park behind Potong Pasir temple, or City Square Mall, letting the road guide me.
Driving puts me in a trance. The sound of the tires on the road, the hum of the engine, the music playing in the background—it all calms me, offering me a sense of serenity I rarely experience.
For someone who’s always anxious, fidgeting, and on edge, this peace feels like true bliss. When I’m driving, I feel free.
I know many others go through the same struggles I do. But despite knowing this, I still feel alone.
Some might ask why I don’t reach out. To me, talking to friends and family about my dysphoria feels pointless. Conversations usually circle back to discussions of what it means to be a man or woman, or to my sexual orientation, which I find unhelpful.
This lack of understanding is due to poor gender education and the limited representation of non-cisgender and non-heterosexual people in the media. Because of this, the emotional and medical support needed for those who suffer from gender dysphoria is often unavailable.
I continue to discover new triggers for my dysphoria. Just recently, I learned that when someone treats me harshly, my brain interprets it as, “They’re treating me this way because I’m a man. If I were a woman, I wouldn’t be treated like this.” It’s a thought so loaded with complexity that it’s overwhelming.
I will never fully understand my dysphoria. It will always be a mystery, no matter how much I try to learn about it. And that’s okay.
