More identity splitting. Is this normal??? Please help

The past couple of days I started getting this again after a 3 week break from it. As I said before, I feel like different versions of me that switch from one day, or one minute to the next so it seems like I always feel like a different person. Some days I used to feel female, some days neither male or female, and other days male. But there wouldn't just be one male, female or in-between gender identity, there were several. Some were more masculine, others more feminine, some could do certain tasks that others couldn't. It was like I had split into many different versions of myself which held certain intellectual and emotional capabilities.

I never feel female any more but mostly male and very occasionally, in between genders. Most recently though I have felt like different male versions and I'm not really sure how to handle this. It makes it difficult to know what careers I am interested in and how I want to dress, and basically who I really am. For the past two weeks I have felt pretty stable and haven't had any of this splitting. I had started to look into jobs and think about how I want to dress but now I have split again and feel like a different man. The past two weeks I have been a man that was a vegetarian and ate a healthy diet, enjoyed looking after my dog, kept a clean and tidy room, was designing a new look for my bedroom and was looking for work in professional careers. Now I feel emotionally numb, the careers I was looking into feel too feminine and make me feel dysphoric, as does the plan I had for my room, being a vegetarian, being clean and tidy and dressing smart. Although I realize there are many ways of being male it seems my brain just won't take it and the man I feel I should be is someone who has no interest or passion for anything, has a bare room, dresses scruffily, works out, has no emotions or need for family or friends, eats meat and works as a manual laborer and basically, someone who doesn't care about anything. I feel like I need to be the most masculine man that there could ever be because anything other makes me dysphoric but I know I will switch from this state back to the person I have been the past two weeks and being so masculine will feel weird. I just don't know how to handle this

 

So this isn't usually the way I like to approach things, but let's look at this a different way for a moment!

You have 'Guy A' and 'Guy B'

Guy A is:
- vegetarian
- healthy
- likes animals
- clean and tidy
- organised
- professional

Guy B is:
- Emotionally numb
- Lacking ambition
- Works out
- Loner
- Eats meat
- Manual worker
- No pride in appearance

Hey look it that, you made me!

But seriously, lets compare these two for a minute. Now if I'm reading you correctly, Guy A makes you really happy, BUT can lead to serious dysphoria. Guy B you basically hate, but appears more masculine so it sort of feels like it might tackle dysphoria for you.

Do you remember a while ago I asked you to try and consider things without the gender bias, and just think of it in terms of you and your depression? We're going to do something similar, but this time we will be addressing the gender issues since we now know what they are (see, progress!).

Now I know I said it earlier as a bit of a joke, but actually in all seriousness 'Guy B' is me from probably 9 months ago and for a significant amount of my life before that. The only difference being that I worked with kids instead of manual labour, BUT I always felt like I got in to that by accident and everybody thought I should be somewhere else.

Guy B might be obviously non-female, but he is also a miserable depressed dude. Don't get me wrong, not everything on that list is a bad thing, and if you took out the first and the last entry then you would probably have a reasonably happy person. But we DO have those things, especially the first one.

As I said before, you are looking at a choice between being the guy you like to be, and having to try that much harder to fight the dysphoria, or being the guy you appear to dislike intensely and fight the depression AND a bit of dysphoria.

 

From the sound of things, what you are going through is fairly normal. It's basically your brain trying to come to a comfortable point. Early on when you're working through the gender identity process, it's easy to let the stereotypes get into your head and influence how you think you should be. Instead, try to remember that a feminine guy is still a guy; a little femininity doesn't make you less of a guy if you feel like a guy on the inside. For example, one of my best friend is a cisgender female, but she has a lot of masculinity to her. That doesn't make her any less of a woman. I know it can be a bit dysphoric at first, but the thing about embracing your identity is that it's just that, embracing. It does not mean that you have to alter yourself in every way just because of your situation. It instead means coming to accept who you are in your entirity, and feeling free to express it however you deem fit. Just give yourself some more time and think it over some more. Maybe then the identity splitting will lessen or stop. Best wishes

 

Yeah I don't feel happy as this other me. In fact I don't feel anything but at the same time it kind of feels right to me to be this kind of guy because - no dysphoria. Why do activities such as cooking and reading and thinking about professional careers that would involve me starting out in administrative work give me dysphoria when they are relatively gender ambiguous? When I say dysphoria, what I mean is it makes me feel uneasy and very anxious. If anyone can answer why these things would make me dysphoric when guys can read or cook too, and work in office environments doing administrative work, I would be very grateful. I can understand why using the women's bathroom would make me dysphoric, or wearing a bra, but why these things that are not gender specific???

 

you say relatively gender ambiguous but do you truly believe that? i have days when i'm feeling numb,or depressed. days when i'm feeling more caring towards others, myself and surroundings. i don't feel less male on those days though. i'm completely comfortable in my inner maleness i don't have to macho to be a guy. even straight people have a female side and a male side, it doesn't change who they are inside. hope this helps.

 

Well, a lot of times there's a discrepancy between your conscious beliefs and your unconscious attitudes. You may consciously believe that those activities are gender neutral, but unconsciously be thinking of them as female activities.

Try researching men who read, cook, and/or do administrative work. Learn about actual individual men who do those activities. Try to imagine meeting those men personally, or actually being those men.

Incidentally, the majority of professional chefs are men.