Dysphoric over old pictures?

Even if you do transition and present yourself as a femme guy, you still will not be female (which I'm assuming is your birth gender for this post, my apologies if I am incorrect in that assumption.) You'll be more masculine than you were in these photos.

The amount of femininity that you have in those photos could be causing the dysphoric feelings, not the femininity itself. (I hope that makes sense..)

 

You're welcome! I can totally relate to feeling that way about old photos. There are some that I can look back at and be fine seeing, but there are others where I get really nervous and feel different when I look at them. It annoys me, because those photos do hold a lot of memories. I wish that I could look at them as my past, but I cannot do that yet, and I might never be able to. (Although I hope that's not the case.)

 

I'm a femme guy, androgynous even, and feel the same way regarding older pictures of myself (back when I was presenting female/before I knew I was trans). I honestly feel much more open and comfortable with embracing femininity than I ever did when I was living my life as a female. Because, well, I'm a guy. Like Brad said, if you do transition and present yourself as a femme guy, you won't be female. Gender =/= gender expression.

Anyway, I've had to either burn or delete most of my old photos, although I've saved a couple just so I can look back on them some time in the future and think to myself, "look how much progress I've made" although I still feel discomfort whenever I happen to glance at them, so I tend to forget about those pictures for the time being. I don't think I'll ever be desensitised to them, but I guess I don't associate myself much with that 'girl' in older pictures. It's gotten better for me over time, the more I've become comfortable with myself and knowing that I'm not 'her.'

 

Not really as I have little body dysphoria, but I do look back at old pictures and think about how much more free I feel now to do what I want in terms of presentation.

 

My mother pulled out old photos of myself when I was a guy, and it made my Dysphoria hit me like a truck, not just because I was a guy, but because I was pretty ugly in said photos

 

I get dysphoric over pictures too. Thankfully my parents aren't the type of parents who have any photos up of me. I can't bear the thought of even looking at pictures of me as a girl/woman. It makes me feel really anxious and sad too because I was never really happy and because I looked fine as a girl but I'm going to be one ugly guy. I still couldn't bear to look at a photo of me as I present now, or even once I start testosterone because all I would see is a half woman half man and get depressed about my appearance. I just avoid looking at pictures of me altogether and I think it will always be that way. I hate mirrors too.

 

There aren't many pictures of me because I always refused to have one taken...that said the ones of my that there are...hmm...

To be honest it's like looking at somebody else for me. I just don't see that person when I look in the mirror. There are some pictures of me from the last time I went on holiday - 2 years ago, pre transition - and I have short hair and a beard...there's one on my profile in fact, and I just...there's nothing. You know, the pic I have on my profile, I look pale and miserable and scruffy and horrible. Some others I'll look happy I guess but even those seem like somebody else...where as now I have pictures like my avatar which have a genuine smile even though I had no reason to be smiling...

 

I feel the same way as you. The few old photos of when I was young, I throw them in the rubbish.

 

I get a little dysphoric, I guess. I have old pictures of both a feminine and a masculine me, but well, I just know now that that's not how I'd ideally present myself.

 

I'm not dysphoric and don't eschew my male side, but like some others said... Jesus I have some horrible pictures floating around out there.

 

Yeah, I get really dysphoric over that kind of shit. My mom's pretty much glued to her camera, takes loads of pictures whenever we're out (or just for the hell of it). She's got maybe hundreds of pictures of me floating around. Tags me on Facebook all the time, no matter how ugly or unflattering the picture is.

Well, the catch is- they're not me. They're some girl prancing around in a prom dress or smiling like a demented chimpanzee. I don't recognize myself in a good portion of them.

Besides what's lying around the house, I don't keep many pictures of what I looked like back then. Maybe a couple I'll use for reference to compare how my transition's going. (and I've actually got one in my album).

I dunno. But in any case, just going by my old pictures I have to say I make a hell of a better looking guy.

I mean, it could just be that when you were taking those pictures, what the camera captured wasn't the authentic you. And in the future, if you transition, even if you were presenting femme, what you'd end up with would match more clearly 'you' beyond anything an old picture could've captured.

 

I can't look at myself, let alone older pictures of me. Since I have presented male since I've been 8, I need to go far to find pictures of me in girly clothes. Though I hate looking at that kid, I always remember that I was faking a smile the whole time.

 

Sometimes I really get down on myself for past choices of any kind. People I've chosen to date, jobs I've had, the way I've treated people in my life. But then I have to remember I was doing the best I knew how at that time. And really my choices weren't that crazy. (maybe one or two )

 

You get dysphoric because you don't like how they look. It doesn't represent you? That's my guess.

This I can relate to. My mom sometimes takes pictures of me helping with her horse. I bet she sends the pictures to her friends. Thank hell my parents don't use Facebook. Honestly, I take more pictures of my knives than myself. I pick apart pictures of myself to insane degrees. I think "wow, that doesn't seem male enough, I wish I was never born!" When I took a picture for identification... I wanted to vomit. I don't recognise the body as me, this is a manufacturing error.

I need to say similar things to myself more often.

I hate old pictures. Even although I dressed 'masculine'. It wasn't good enough. Almost anything before age 17... will burn if I discover. I looked at old pictures before and I thought "who the f**k is that?" It also made me think about the bullying and I couldn't handle it. That person, how could they have been me, damn, they were so confused. They dealt with things I could not imagine and they studied more than I'd probably ever be capable of. The best revenge is to get on with life. It took me a while to realise that.

It's only recently (this year!) that I've been able to listen to the rest of the music I enjoyed back then. That's right, even old music made me upset, most of it at least.