Am I Transgender?

Dysphoria

     Dysphoria, such a small word can hold so much power over me. It takes my day and makes it do a complete 180 and puts me on the floor crying. I will never be tall enough. I will never be good enough. I will never pass. I will never be masculine enough.

     Do transgender people just know when they're trans? How do I know if I'm trans? I don't feel comfortable identifying as trans, but I definitely feel even more uncomfortable identifying as non binary or as genderfluid. 

     When my hair was cut and was short, before I made the decision about 2 months ago to grow it out, I felt so much more comfortable in my own skin. Because of this comfortability I grew complacent and thought that growing my hair out wouldn't be a struggle and I would enjoy long hair again. I'm currently 2 months into that decision and it's unbearable. I got my mom to schedule a hair appointment. 

     I recently stumbled across old photos of me with long hair and it just looked like I was seeing pictures of a stranger. My hair holds some kind of power over me and I never realized it until that moment. Why am I so uncomfortable identifying as transgender? Questioning isn't something that the everyday cis person does and it frustrates me that this has been an ongoing struggle for months. I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm transgender, but just have so much internalized transphobia that I convince myself I'm not. For example when I'm around non-lgbt friends I feel the need to dress up completely female no matter how uncomfortable it makes me feel, like almost as if I'm putting a show on and I'm playing the character of a normal cisgender straight girl. But when I'm around my lgbt friends, especially ones I've voiced this dysphoria to, I am comfortable presenting myself in this masculine way and even using a masculine nickname. 

     Dysphoria is such a bitch. Everyday that I don't feel dysphoric I convince myself I must not be transgender or genderfluid and that what I have felt might not have been real. But then out of nowhere and over the smallest things I am so dysphoric it's so hard to function. I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. The world feels so wrong and so weird. 

     I bought men's clothes online thinking it'd make me feel better, but instead when it arrived I put it on to only find out how abnormal and wrong it looks on my short and tiny body, it crushed me. The clothes were so baggy and big on me, and barely fit. I was so excited to be able to present in a male fashion and then bam all of the sudden these clothes come and it's not what I expected at all. If anything it made me realize how masculine I wish I could be. 

     To anyone who is reading this and struggling through the same thing I want to just voice my sorrows for you. It's such a struggle. And honestly it's just so overwhelming sometimes I want to stop it all and put it on the back burner, but I know that isn't a possibility. Dysphoria has been my best friend and my worst enemy through this all. It proves to me that what I'm feeling isn't fake, but does it in a manner that makes me miserable.