4thWaveNow

Hey anon, thanks for your patience with me.

I can understand and relate a lot to what you’re talking about in terms of being surprised or taken aback by your features, expecting them to be different, and feeling surreal/detached from your physical form. Obviously there’s a lot to unpack in what I am about to say, but some things that have helped me the most with that set of issues are:

1. Physical exercise would sometimes give me moments of “alignment” overall–not necessarily with this or that “part,” but if I could get my body working as a whole, and feel blood circulating through it, that would become a basis for experiencing myself as being inside it in a more aligned and complete way, and I could build on that experience over time to draw myself back in in times of distress. Muscle memory, almost.

2. Meditation of the variety where you lose language, “take off” stories, release value judgments, self-concepts…let them fall away and focus entirely on breath. Lately I have been playing with using sound at times–not words, which for me tend to activate the judging behavior in my mind, but just vowel sounds and humming vibrations that resonate in different parts of the body. I can recommend a woman who can teach you sound techniques like these if you’re interested. Just email me.

3. Developing a habit of “lightness” with respect to the disconnect. Remembering to tell myself that the feeling of disconnect just is what it is, does not need to have any narrative attached to it, and does not mean I need to do anything in particular. I notice the feeling of misalignment. I do not try to force a feeling of alignment. I do not frame it into a trans narrative. That in itself helps contain it so it doesn’t spiral out in that particular way.

4. Journal about the feeling of misalignment–the kind where you keep the pen moving no matter what for 3 pages, or 5 pages, or 10 pages–to get underneath the “natural” feeling of the misalignment into what’s underneath it. Free-associative writing can help with this a lot. It’s never “just because”–even though it insists it is, even though it really wants you to believe that’s the case. There’s always at least a fragment of information about when I first felt this disconnect, what else was connected, things like that. There’s often also information about how others perceive the aspect that feels misaligned, and how they have treated me because of it. This can be important to notice, too.

5. Pay attention to self care basics like food, sleep, emotional states (loneliness, anger), conditions like depression, sobriety. When any of those kinds of things go “off,” the disconnect can be much more likely to surface and more difficult to manage.

6. If transition photos or photos of dudes are triggering for you at times, you might want to try avoiding them. It might be interesting to try looking at images of women who are not “doing woman” in the usual way instead (i.e., the Wanted project photos and videos, the instagram I posted recently with photos and videos of a butch powerlifter), and see what impact that has on you. If it were me, I’d try journaling about how it feels physiologically and what thoughts I have in each case. Notice breathing, notice which parts of your body are tense or engaged, in each case. Notice what thoughts come. Things like that.

I’m sorry I can’t be very helpful about voice in particular, because I altered mine before I could attempt any reconciliation there. I regret not being able to learn all that I could have learned from my body if I had not changed it. The disconnect I felt from my voice was a signal. There was a thread there I needed to follow. I cut that one. 

I would like to tag lavenderjanestrikesback on this, too, because she has deep and important things to say about voice. Maybe you can write to her about that part of it.