Dysphoria and Existential Crisis
Hey y'all. I came across this subreddit and wanna ask y'all something that I've been thinking about for a while. Context: I'm non-binary (he/they pronouns) and bisexual (ik sexuality isn't really the topic of this subreddit, but I think it applies here considering the rest of my post)
For anyone who has been or is currently in a transphobic situation, particularly because you live with transphobic family and can't transition because of that, and/or are in a financial situation where you can't transition or otherwise, has your dysphoria ever (felt like it) dissipated and been replaced by an existential dread/crisis or something similar?
Because I can feel that my dysphoria has gone down, but I'm pretty sure that it's gone down because I live with transphobic parents who won't let me transition and have - for the most part - forced me back in the closet for as long as I live with them. It doesn't really help because I'm Muslim (parents are as well, it's where the transphobia is coming from) and I've been really demotivated from doing a fair amount of stuff in my life beyond school (I'm a uni grad student). On the other hand, though, there are times where my dysphoria *does* come back. Mildly compared to before I came out to my parents, but comes back nonetheless.
My theory for why this has happened is because I think my brain is trying to protect me form everything that's going on. Maybe from an evolutionary perspective, self-preservation instincts seem to suppress aspirations of self-actualization because you can't really do the latter if you're dead (Note: I'm NOT suicidal, I'm just explaining how I think this neurological process is working on a biological, evolutionary level).
Another, non-evolutionary reason is that the fact that I can't self-actualize seems to be more depressing than the dysphoria, because the negative emotions associated with dysphoria and transphobic family members spirals into *why* they're transphobic, which spirals into both the social, legal and theological justifications for why transphobia is a good thing, and the negative theological implications for not just advocating for my own mental wellbeing as a transgender person, but also the social and legal rights of me and other queer people.
TW (High Self-Deprecation, Possibly Internalized Queerphobia)
>!Basically, my whole experience coming out to my family has shown that I don't deserve a content life. I and people like me deserve to be second-class, with just about everything that comes with that. The hate crimes and other abuses against queer people wouldn't happen if we just stayed closeted. If I believe in and advocate for anything other than that, I risk divine punishment both in this life and the afterlife.!<The thing is, even though this is the best understanding I have of my religion, I can't stomach the reality of what queerphobia entails. I don't want to live a closeted life, nor do I intend to live one. I don't want that for any other queer person, and if I were to have children I don't want to teach that to them. Hence I'll be risking my place in the Hereafter, and that genuinely scares me.
Can anyone else relate to this and can explain what's going on? Why does (my) dysphoria 'go away'?