Someone close to me started transitioning recently. Went from having a pretty bad body image but functional, to obsessively dissecting every part of their appearance and behavior in the mirror, sometimes hours at a time. Went from anxious and depressed but somewhat functional to starving themself, not being able to leave their house or even keep the curtains open for paranoia over being seen and clocked. Always waiting for a magic cure - first it was "when I get on hormones, everything will start getting better", then "when I find the correct dosage", "when I can buy a new set of clothes", "when my body finally changes", "when I get my surgery", ad infinitum. There's always a new thing to dream of that will make everything all roses and rainbows, all the while spiraling into an ever-more catastrophic mental breakdown.
It really is exactly like an eating disorder. It's fucking heartbreaking. I just want to shake them and say hey, nothing that you do will fix your self-hatred, this is all for nothing, you don't need a transition, you need serious psychiatric intervention, and the longer you go down this road the more psychological damage you're inflicting on yourself.
And I mean, a collection of lesser niggling frustrations. Like having the fact that taking estrogen can cause deep vein thrombosis explained to me, like thanks, I know. Having people talk about their boobs and show off their collection of skirts to me, as if I care. Listening to how women have long hair and wear swirly skirts and how you have to wear makeup to the grocery store, myself having short hair and wearing makeup once a month, and wanting to scream where the fuck are you getting this from, what the hell am I to you. And PhilosophyTube... just, all of PhilosophyTube.
And I mean for a while I felt super bad because those aren't the Right Thoughts and I was being an ~*evil TERF*~... But then I realized that even though I'd always thought that people saying those things were hateful, they weren't necessarily, and often they're just maligned because they make men feel bad. (I know a lot of people here despise trans people, but I genuinely don't have any kind of hatred towards them. I have a lot of anger and frustration at the culture around transness, but not trans individuals or even the general idea of transitioning.) And once I got over that hump of categorically rejecting truthful thoughts because I was scared they made me hateful, it just was a lot easier to think about things logically and clearly.
