So, with the recent dreary weather coming into these winter months as someone who lives in a darker, more northern state, I've been experiencing some depression which has lead to some dissociation, though I'm not sure if it is congruent with my identity issues, or if my dissociation is causing my identity issues, or some combination thereof. I've been identifying as non-binary for the past year and a half or so...I've always had some doubts about my gender and some detachment from being a woman considering I'm a pretty masculine person and don't fit neatly into a lot of gender roles, but only about a year and a half ago did I start connecting the dots and realizing I didn't have resentment towards other women / feminine things, but rather the fact that I thought I "had" to be one. Anyway though, for anyone who experiences / knows anything about dissociation, there are two more main facets of it, derealization and depersonalization. Depersonalization is where you feel estranged or detached from yourself, and derealization is when you feel disconnected from the world around you, outside of you. Now, when I was younger, I used to occassionally depersonalize really hard when I was menstruating though I mostly just attributed it to hormone fluctuation and mood swings... I didn't really hate any one part of myself distinctly or feel like my period itself shouldn't be happening, but I remember not feeling like I was in control of my mood/actions, it felt like my face was physically floating a few inches away from my "real face", and I would yell at myself inside my head like "why are you acting like this?? Why don't you just act normal, you're being an idiot and everyone around you can tell and is annoyed" and stuff like that...like my sane self was reprimanding my neurotic self.... Anyway though, since coming to terms with how I felt about my identity, I've noticed these episodes have been returning more often. I'll look at a picture of myself sometimes and think I just look "fake", like the way I'm holding myself, what it looks like I'm expressing or feeling in the picture, just isn't me. I feel like my body, or my emotions, or my hormones or something are "in the way" of my true personality....I'm not sure if this is a gender thing, or if its just a depression/dissociation thing....or if its that but its just being amplified by my awareness of my dysphoria issues now, seeing as I'm feeling disconnected more and more often now since realizing how being called a "woman" and stuff like that really makes me feel. Sorry, I don't entirely know why I'm making this post. But is this a shared experience or does anyone else deal with these types of feelings as well, whether due to gender or just as an identity issue / trauma coping mechanism in general?? Have you discovered if the two issues were interconnected or were they two separate ones that happened to affect or trigger one another..??
