It's pretty easy to call into a feedback loop between depression and dysphoria. First, there are many overlapping symptoms, not limited to : feeling bad about oneself, feeling futureless, losing motivation, etc.
To help stem off dysphoria, it's often important to do things to regulate one's appearance. For me, shaving, having decent nails, being clean, and wearing clean clothes help. However, when one is depressed, it's often very hard to do these things.
In turn, that leads to more dysphoric feelings, which tend to also be depressing. In turn, one's self-care lapses further, or becomes harder to keep up with, until you're a mess who can barely get out of bed, if at all. It's not complicated, but breaking out of it is hard.
You have to find the motivation (how? where?) to begin that selfcare and bring it to a level where dysphoria weighs on you minimally. That itself can be exhausting and lead to more depression and a return to intensified dysphoria.
And this is why transition is often so important - if I complete permanent hair removal on my face, I will never have the sinking feeling of seeing stubble or the frustration of having a beard-shadow despite shaving that stubble off. That seemingly minor change gives me back some time and effort and it also keeps me from starting off on the wrong foot when I go to the bathroom in the morning and glance at the mirror.
This is a vast oversimplification, not taking into account how other people's loos and comments can trigger dyphoria, how observing cultural norms can trigger it, or how the world being fucked can make us depressed. But you begin to get the idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment