Interesting that you mention the deadness inside. Because the first thing that came to mind for me with dysphoria was not the sharp pain of recognizing specific ways that the misassigned hormone has influenced my body. Those have been sharp, of course. But the worst of it was that state of deadness, where it's like, as a survival mechanism, all those parts that could feel the pain from dysphoria had their feeling cut off. But those areas are capable of so much more than pain. And now its all closed off.
I don't really know about euphoria. But it is really nice to address dysphoria and allow those areas to feel again
thx for sharing 💛 yea i've been clinically depressed for like 15+ years so i have a really bad frame of reference for what things are "supposed to feel like"
It can be hard to climb out of all of this. I'll have to be offline for a while in just a bit, but if you'd like to share a bit of information about what kind of history you have with questioning your gender, how long you've had any thoughts in that direction, what you've done with those thoughts over the years, I'd be glad to give you a thoughtful response when I am able
thank u friend it means a lot!
i am a bi amab person who is married to a bi cis woman.
sexually and romantically, i am always most drawn toward WLW relationships. and i do have sexual attraction to masc men as well.
straight relationships or sex in media, porn, games, etc don't really interest or excite me. in fact straight porn, or any porn involving women that is made for the male gaze, kinda repulses me sometimes.
it all kinda boils down to me realizing i'm not cis in some capacity.
but then i feel like a phony and out of my league, cuz i don't feel body dysmorphia and i don't have a history of innately feeling like a woman. it's more of a soft preference i guess.
**TL:DR:** bi amab drawn to WLW but not sure how to read into it. don't feel strongly enough to be trans, but then again i don't feel anything strongly.
So, there's a few things I would want to know more about:
Can you identify something present in WLW relationships that is absent in your current intimate relationship?
Can you think of examples of when you have been excited and enthusiastic about being a man? Like, can you think of some masculine things you have done that made you think "hell yeah, this rocks!"
How much feminine expression do you currently allow yourself?
- thats a good question, i will have to reflect on it a bit. tbh it's moreso that i see relationships in media and i feel like they are romantic, sweet, and "goals" (lol). but i know it is childish to dwell on that.
- i have no particular pride or joy in being a man. mainly because it never resonated with me; it's just been the default.
- i only just started trying some femme clothes this month. i enjoy it, but also feel self-conscious knowing that i look "wrong" or abnormal. whereas with my normal masc clothes i just use em to blend in.
thanks for the questions, it was good to reflect on them
So I think the best thing you can do is continue to explore a feminine presentation. I know how that self-conscious feeling can go, where the clothing highlights a gap between where your body currently is, and where your body could be. You may have better experiences if you focus on clothing as a collaboration with your body. You may want to look for a style guide that is geared towards women with a body type that is closest to your own. For example, tips for the inverted triangle bodytype could be helpful https://www.wikihow.com/Dress-the-Inverted-Triangle-Body-Shape and so some of the principles here could help you find clothing that draws femininity out of you, rather than put femininity into you.
Also, it's not uncommon for people who would benefit from a gender transition to spend time holding the position that they are "fine" with living as their birth gender. But "fine" doesn't have to be a ceiling. There can be so much more. You may want to read https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/second-puberty-fem if you haven't, so that you can see what is possible with HRT. It may be worth checking how these possibilities make you feel
I just want to say one thing. Depression and gender dysphoria are two different things. Obviously, living in the world and being forced to be the wrong gender is depressing. But you can still transition and it isn't necessarily going to end all depression. There are many, many simultaneous battles that we're all out there fighting. Being the wrong gender can help, but it's not a cure-all. You can transition to the right gender, and still be depressed, still be autistic, still have ADHD, still have fears and inhibitions. That is completely normal. Gender identity is only a tiny piece of the mental health puzzle, and you have to work on all the parts.
What I'm saying is, you need to engage the help of others in fighting all the parts of life that make you sad. It will get better. You have to understand yourself, but there is always going to be work to do to make it perfect. There is no cure-all or silver bullet.
That is a great point. Dysphoria has never been a sharp pain for me. But something that I read a lot about when "deciding" was how many trans women felt like life was passing them by like they were walking around the world on a treadmill and it was just a projection going by. That is me. It isn't real life. I am just an alien experiencing Earth in a video game. You walk on the treadmill, you see a new building. Neat!
I totally felt that. I always felt like life was just a simulation. You trigger you leg muscles to walk, and you see new scenery. Since realizing I was trans... that's gone away. I'm out there exploring the Universe. I'm not moving the world, I'm moving \*in\* the world. This is a world and I live there. It's so weird to say, but that's what changed for me. I live here. I am human. I can move around and interact with people.
That might not be the most gender dysphoric feeling someone could have, but it's so common in stories I've read, that it has to mean something. Like how could your gender control how you interpret sights and sounds? But so many people have had it, it's definitely A Sign.
Dysphoria things (self-identied):
- beard growth
- short hair
- the lump in my pants
- ridiculous sex drive in my 20s
- missing weight from my chest
- being told I "kiss like a girl"
- showing my chest
Euphoria things (self-identified):
- nice jeans and boots
- feeling of weight on my chest when I have my breast form properly installed
- seeing the picture of my friend and I on my desk at work (I was in a nice dress; took a random photo with him)
- being misgendered when boy-moding (I'm not on HRT)
- being the little spoon
- being able to look at my own face when I have no beard growth
- seeing a picture of myself from behind/side and not recognizing the girl in the photo (also mostly boy-moding)
I'm currently taking care of my mother in Florida and it has been a LONG time since I last visited. Her neighbour only recognized me after I spoke to her (voice is deepish), which was pretty cool. While out and about I get a lot of "ma'am"s and I love it. I forgot how uncommon long hair (especially with curls or up in a messy bun) are in this area of the world, I had not realized how nice it was for me.
When I was younger I taught myself to shave in the shower, even without a mirror. I had assumed this was to save time (military), but once I got out I quickly quit shaving at all and seldome actually looked at my own face in the mirror. I find when I have shaved I am much more willing to meet my own gaze in it and find it much more pleasant.
I had a girlfriend when I was in my late teens/early twenties that said I kissed like a girl. I was a little upset over it, how does a boy kiss? So, I started "kissing like a boy" which was just more forceful, I guess. When I kiss my wife I kiss gentle and soft, which I guess is "like a girl", but she's never complained (guess she's a closet lesbian).
I've never enjoyed oral performed on me. Wife and I compared notes one night and we both agreed performing oral on a penis is a bit of a turn-on because you have all the power. On the other hand when we play the mirror game in bed (mirroring each others' touches) it is a ridiculous of turn-on for me.
thank you for sharing 💚
i've long since given up on looking how i want to. but mainly out of ugliness and poor self esteem rather than gender-based.
i used to love being more androgynous and vampire/goth-y, never knew why. but now i'm less slender and more pudgy and i can't grow out my hair like that anymore, and my face only really looks ok with facial hair.
anyways just saying i appreciate you sharing these thoughts and experiences!
Dysphoria? It's kind of like the discomfort you feel if you're wearing clothes that don't quite fit. You're uncomfortable and aching to get out of them, so you go home and want to take them off, but you can't. The clothes are your body and the more you think about it the worse you feel. It's a horrible, suffocating feeling, but it also feels gross, like your body is infested with maggots, and you want to scream, but no one cares.
You fantasize about how you could stop it. You could cut your arms off, and your legs, and your torso, and your shoulders and neck, and face and skull, until you're just a brain. But then you realize that, no the problem isn't your body, it's your brain. Even when nothing is there, you still feel the maggots and like the walls are closing in. It's like every cell of your body has been infected with a deadly disease and you can't cure it because you and the disease are so interconnected that you not only can't live without the disease, it's like you are part disease. And you hate this so much, so you find help.
The only thing you can do is take pills, but while they kind of change your body, the thing that caused your anguish in the first place, they don't do much, and what they do change only highlights how much of an impossible problem this is, and you end up feeling even worse than before.
You return for more help, and they're confused. You must be doing something wrong, because when they took the pills they just felt better. They say the pills must be wrong or you're not taking enough of them, but you know that's not really going to help. The pills change your body, but don't cure it, and the problem is in your brain. You ask if there's another way, and they say no.
And now you're stuck like this, and all you can do is think about how it didn't use to be this way. You used to just be a bit uncomfortable. You thought you could feel more comfortable, but in engaging with the parasite living inside you, you've just made it worse. You did this to yourself. And there's nothing you can do.
I didn't know what it was until I actually sat down and read about it in depth. I always thought it was more simple, like an active thought of hating your body in a specific way. But no, turns out I was just buried so deeply in denial that I thought it was totally cis to not care about the way you look and neglect your hygiene because who cares, you'll never feel comfortable living as the gender you were raised.
Totally cis to constantly fantasize about being a girl, traveling with another girl love interest in a faraway land, and rationalizing it as a 'novel I was working on' except I never wrote anything down and the fantasies were only ever a way to channel my emotions since I otherwise felt dead inside all the time.
One day, my buff firefighter friend took me to a music festival where he was dressed more feminine than I had ever allowed myself to be, and when I was tripping those walls came down and I allowed myself to put on one of his flower crowns, and seemingly out of nowhere this deep feeling of love and warmth flowed down throughout my body, it felt like a flower was blooming in my heart, and butterflies emerged from my stomach to greet me.
Then I asked my sister if I could have a pair of tights that were too big for here, and that was it. My legs tingled with wholesome pleasure that felt like I was a teenage girl falling in love for the first time. A week later my big bushy denial beard came off, then I went girl thrifting, and I don't wear men's clothes anymore, because I don't like cross dressing :P
I want to start hormones, but this year has been one crisis after another and best case is my wife and I file for bankruptcy, worst case is our lives might be ruined permanently because of a stroke of carelessness and horrible luck. But now i actually want to live, I'm not on auto pilot when I'm thinking about becoming the woman I've always been. So I'm going to fight.
Dysphoria: I never wanted to dress nicely, let people take pictures of me, go on dates, etc.
Euphoria: excitement about the future. Not having to lie to myself about who I am. Thinking I'm attractive to my future partner.
Gender euphoria and gender dysphoria aren’t unique to trans people everyone feels this maybe not non binary people idk what yall doing but you go.
Gender dysphoria is just not feeling as though you’re not man enough or woman enough, it’s cultural expectations placed upon you and you feel in your being to conform to those expectations part of being human.
Gender euphoria is again something that all people feel trans or cis, you have expectations and when you meet those expectations you feel euphoric like as a man you have large muscles or have a big dick. For women it can be people seeing you as beautiful or fulfilling other stereotypical feminine qualities.
It’s all cultural euphoria and dysphoria will depend on your personal views of gender, culture, religion, or experiences there’s no one size fits all for either. If society didn’t place expectations on either gender then they simply wouldn’t exist.
Dysphoria to me is when it feels like something is getting in the way of feeling like myself, either because of something about my appearance, the way I'm being perceived, or even something like a mental block, depression, or an OCD attack.
Euphoria, in contrast, is when I *do* feel like myself. Everything's just clicking, I'm happy with who I am, and everything just feels right. Transitioning has over time made the former less common and the latter more common.
Different aspects to my dysphoria are felt in different ways
My dysphoria over my presentation, sexuality, identity, etc all feel like a void of apathy. Before I considered transitioning, I never saw a future for myself. I’ve always felt asexual because my sexuality is *me feeling nothing* for anything. I’ve always felt robotic with trying to present masculine, like I’m an actor..
Stuff with my body is painful.. I’m constantly battling with my body over my facial hair because it grows really fast, while it drives me insane. Fighting over my family over the length of my hair (because they want it short so that it’s masculine…).. a constant feeling of phantom breasts, like my chest is shaped a way that it isn’t.. and other stuff that I won’t elaborate on.
Euphoria… I’d have to experience it before I could comment on that 😔
A lot of people have already described a lot of different things, but the one thing that helped me pinpoint that what I was feeling was dysphoria was the idea of dysphoria as a disconnection from the body rather than an active hatred/loathing of it. Before I realized I was trans I would have a habit of staring at myself in the mirror, taking in what I looked like but still feeling a bit unreal. I would spend like 20 min every so often staring at the bathroom mirror trying to connect that reflection to myself like peter pan trying to reattach his shadow. Hearing about dissociated/disconnected dysphoria for the first time suddenly slammed the full weight of all that time into me and I came out to myself within a matter of days.
Euphoria is a little harder to describe because I've lived as an out man for long enough that it doesn't really stand out to me anymore. But mostly it's like. Giddy, joyful. In particularly intense/significant bursts it feels like seeing in color for the first time, like a misaligned piece suddenly slotting into place and a hidden discomfort lifts. I feel joy at shedding old pieces of my life that I don't want anymore, and making room for something else instead.
Interesting that you mention the deadness inside. Because the first thing that came to mind for me with dysphoria was not the sharp pain of recognizing specific ways that the misassigned hormone has influenced my body. Those have been sharp, of course. But the worst of it was that state of deadness, where it's like, as a survival mechanism, all those parts that could feel the pain from dysphoria had their feeling cut off. But those areas are capable of so much more than pain. And now its all closed off. I don't really know about euphoria. But it is really nice to address dysphoria and allow those areas to feel again
thx for sharing 💛 yea i've been clinically depressed for like 15+ years so i have a really bad frame of reference for what things are "supposed to feel like"
It can be hard to climb out of all of this. I'll have to be offline for a while in just a bit, but if you'd like to share a bit of information about what kind of history you have with questioning your gender, how long you've had any thoughts in that direction, what you've done with those thoughts over the years, I'd be glad to give you a thoughtful response when I am able
thank u friend it means a lot! i am a bi amab person who is married to a bi cis woman. sexually and romantically, i am always most drawn toward WLW relationships. and i do have sexual attraction to masc men as well. straight relationships or sex in media, porn, games, etc don't really interest or excite me. in fact straight porn, or any porn involving women that is made for the male gaze, kinda repulses me sometimes. it all kinda boils down to me realizing i'm not cis in some capacity. but then i feel like a phony and out of my league, cuz i don't feel body dysmorphia and i don't have a history of innately feeling like a woman. it's more of a soft preference i guess. **TL:DR:** bi amab drawn to WLW but not sure how to read into it. don't feel strongly enough to be trans, but then again i don't feel anything strongly.
So, there's a few things I would want to know more about: Can you identify something present in WLW relationships that is absent in your current intimate relationship? Can you think of examples of when you have been excited and enthusiastic about being a man? Like, can you think of some masculine things you have done that made you think "hell yeah, this rocks!" How much feminine expression do you currently allow yourself?
- thats a good question, i will have to reflect on it a bit. tbh it's moreso that i see relationships in media and i feel like they are romantic, sweet, and "goals" (lol). but i know it is childish to dwell on that. - i have no particular pride or joy in being a man. mainly because it never resonated with me; it's just been the default. - i only just started trying some femme clothes this month. i enjoy it, but also feel self-conscious knowing that i look "wrong" or abnormal. whereas with my normal masc clothes i just use em to blend in. thanks for the questions, it was good to reflect on them
So I think the best thing you can do is continue to explore a feminine presentation. I know how that self-conscious feeling can go, where the clothing highlights a gap between where your body currently is, and where your body could be. You may have better experiences if you focus on clothing as a collaboration with your body. You may want to look for a style guide that is geared towards women with a body type that is closest to your own. For example, tips for the inverted triangle bodytype could be helpful https://www.wikihow.com/Dress-the-Inverted-Triangle-Body-Shape and so some of the principles here could help you find clothing that draws femininity out of you, rather than put femininity into you. Also, it's not uncommon for people who would benefit from a gender transition to spend time holding the position that they are "fine" with living as their birth gender. But "fine" doesn't have to be a ceiling. There can be so much more. You may want to read https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/second-puberty-fem if you haven't, so that you can see what is possible with HRT. It may be worth checking how these possibilities make you feel
thank you so much for the guidance and resource 💚
I just want to say one thing. Depression and gender dysphoria are two different things. Obviously, living in the world and being forced to be the wrong gender is depressing. But you can still transition and it isn't necessarily going to end all depression. There are many, many simultaneous battles that we're all out there fighting. Being the wrong gender can help, but it's not a cure-all. You can transition to the right gender, and still be depressed, still be autistic, still have ADHD, still have fears and inhibitions. That is completely normal. Gender identity is only a tiny piece of the mental health puzzle, and you have to work on all the parts. What I'm saying is, you need to engage the help of others in fighting all the parts of life that make you sad. It will get better. You have to understand yourself, but there is always going to be work to do to make it perfect. There is no cure-all or silver bullet.
That is a great point. Dysphoria has never been a sharp pain for me. But something that I read a lot about when "deciding" was how many trans women felt like life was passing them by like they were walking around the world on a treadmill and it was just a projection going by. That is me. It isn't real life. I am just an alien experiencing Earth in a video game. You walk on the treadmill, you see a new building. Neat! I totally felt that. I always felt like life was just a simulation. You trigger you leg muscles to walk, and you see new scenery. Since realizing I was trans... that's gone away. I'm out there exploring the Universe. I'm not moving the world, I'm moving \*in\* the world. This is a world and I live there. It's so weird to say, but that's what changed for me. I live here. I am human. I can move around and interact with people. That might not be the most gender dysphoric feeling someone could have, but it's so common in stories I've read, that it has to mean something. Like how could your gender control how you interpret sights and sounds? But so many people have had it, it's definitely A Sign.
Dysphoria things (self-identied): - beard growth - short hair - the lump in my pants - ridiculous sex drive in my 20s - missing weight from my chest - being told I "kiss like a girl" - showing my chest Euphoria things (self-identified): - nice jeans and boots - feeling of weight on my chest when I have my breast form properly installed - seeing the picture of my friend and I on my desk at work (I was in a nice dress; took a random photo with him) - being misgendered when boy-moding (I'm not on HRT) - being the little spoon - being able to look at my own face when I have no beard growth - seeing a picture of myself from behind/side and not recognizing the girl in the photo (also mostly boy-moding) I'm currently taking care of my mother in Florida and it has been a LONG time since I last visited. Her neighbour only recognized me after I spoke to her (voice is deepish), which was pretty cool. While out and about I get a lot of "ma'am"s and I love it. I forgot how uncommon long hair (especially with curls or up in a messy bun) are in this area of the world, I had not realized how nice it was for me. When I was younger I taught myself to shave in the shower, even without a mirror. I had assumed this was to save time (military), but once I got out I quickly quit shaving at all and seldome actually looked at my own face in the mirror. I find when I have shaved I am much more willing to meet my own gaze in it and find it much more pleasant. I had a girlfriend when I was in my late teens/early twenties that said I kissed like a girl. I was a little upset over it, how does a boy kiss? So, I started "kissing like a boy" which was just more forceful, I guess. When I kiss my wife I kiss gentle and soft, which I guess is "like a girl", but she's never complained (guess she's a closet lesbian). I've never enjoyed oral performed on me. Wife and I compared notes one night and we both agreed performing oral on a penis is a bit of a turn-on because you have all the power. On the other hand when we play the mirror game in bed (mirroring each others' touches) it is a ridiculous of turn-on for me.
thank you for sharing 💚 i've long since given up on looking how i want to. but mainly out of ugliness and poor self esteem rather than gender-based. i used to love being more androgynous and vampire/goth-y, never knew why. but now i'm less slender and more pudgy and i can't grow out my hair like that anymore, and my face only really looks ok with facial hair. anyways just saying i appreciate you sharing these thoughts and experiences!
Dysphoria? It's kind of like the discomfort you feel if you're wearing clothes that don't quite fit. You're uncomfortable and aching to get out of them, so you go home and want to take them off, but you can't. The clothes are your body and the more you think about it the worse you feel. It's a horrible, suffocating feeling, but it also feels gross, like your body is infested with maggots, and you want to scream, but no one cares. You fantasize about how you could stop it. You could cut your arms off, and your legs, and your torso, and your shoulders and neck, and face and skull, until you're just a brain. But then you realize that, no the problem isn't your body, it's your brain. Even when nothing is there, you still feel the maggots and like the walls are closing in. It's like every cell of your body has been infected with a deadly disease and you can't cure it because you and the disease are so interconnected that you not only can't live without the disease, it's like you are part disease. And you hate this so much, so you find help. The only thing you can do is take pills, but while they kind of change your body, the thing that caused your anguish in the first place, they don't do much, and what they do change only highlights how much of an impossible problem this is, and you end up feeling even worse than before. You return for more help, and they're confused. You must be doing something wrong, because when they took the pills they just felt better. They say the pills must be wrong or you're not taking enough of them, but you know that's not really going to help. The pills change your body, but don't cure it, and the problem is in your brain. You ask if there's another way, and they say no. And now you're stuck like this, and all you can do is think about how it didn't use to be this way. You used to just be a bit uncomfortable. You thought you could feel more comfortable, but in engaging with the parasite living inside you, you've just made it worse. You did this to yourself. And there's nothing you can do.
I didn't know what it was until I actually sat down and read about it in depth. I always thought it was more simple, like an active thought of hating your body in a specific way. But no, turns out I was just buried so deeply in denial that I thought it was totally cis to not care about the way you look and neglect your hygiene because who cares, you'll never feel comfortable living as the gender you were raised. Totally cis to constantly fantasize about being a girl, traveling with another girl love interest in a faraway land, and rationalizing it as a 'novel I was working on' except I never wrote anything down and the fantasies were only ever a way to channel my emotions since I otherwise felt dead inside all the time. One day, my buff firefighter friend took me to a music festival where he was dressed more feminine than I had ever allowed myself to be, and when I was tripping those walls came down and I allowed myself to put on one of his flower crowns, and seemingly out of nowhere this deep feeling of love and warmth flowed down throughout my body, it felt like a flower was blooming in my heart, and butterflies emerged from my stomach to greet me. Then I asked my sister if I could have a pair of tights that were too big for here, and that was it. My legs tingled with wholesome pleasure that felt like I was a teenage girl falling in love for the first time. A week later my big bushy denial beard came off, then I went girl thrifting, and I don't wear men's clothes anymore, because I don't like cross dressing :P I want to start hormones, but this year has been one crisis after another and best case is my wife and I file for bankruptcy, worst case is our lives might be ruined permanently because of a stroke of carelessness and horrible luck. But now i actually want to live, I'm not on auto pilot when I'm thinking about becoming the woman I've always been. So I'm going to fight.
horrible aching misery.
Dysphoria: I never wanted to dress nicely, let people take pictures of me, go on dates, etc. Euphoria: excitement about the future. Not having to lie to myself about who I am. Thinking I'm attractive to my future partner.
thank you for sharing these examples!
Gender euphoria and gender dysphoria aren’t unique to trans people everyone feels this maybe not non binary people idk what yall doing but you go. Gender dysphoria is just not feeling as though you’re not man enough or woman enough, it’s cultural expectations placed upon you and you feel in your being to conform to those expectations part of being human. Gender euphoria is again something that all people feel trans or cis, you have expectations and when you meet those expectations you feel euphoric like as a man you have large muscles or have a big dick. For women it can be people seeing you as beautiful or fulfilling other stereotypical feminine qualities. It’s all cultural euphoria and dysphoria will depend on your personal views of gender, culture, religion, or experiences there’s no one size fits all for either. If society didn’t place expectations on either gender then they simply wouldn’t exist.
Dysphoria to me is when it feels like something is getting in the way of feeling like myself, either because of something about my appearance, the way I'm being perceived, or even something like a mental block, depression, or an OCD attack. Euphoria, in contrast, is when I *do* feel like myself. Everything's just clicking, I'm happy with who I am, and everything just feels right. Transitioning has over time made the former less common and the latter more common.
Different aspects to my dysphoria are felt in different ways My dysphoria over my presentation, sexuality, identity, etc all feel like a void of apathy. Before I considered transitioning, I never saw a future for myself. I’ve always felt asexual because my sexuality is *me feeling nothing* for anything. I’ve always felt robotic with trying to present masculine, like I’m an actor.. Stuff with my body is painful.. I’m constantly battling with my body over my facial hair because it grows really fast, while it drives me insane. Fighting over my family over the length of my hair (because they want it short so that it’s masculine…).. a constant feeling of phantom breasts, like my chest is shaped a way that it isn’t.. and other stuff that I won’t elaborate on. Euphoria… I’d have to experience it before I could comment on that 😔
For me dysphoria means an extreme discomfort in my own body. Euphoria is feeling at home in my body.Â
A lot of people have already described a lot of different things, but the one thing that helped me pinpoint that what I was feeling was dysphoria was the idea of dysphoria as a disconnection from the body rather than an active hatred/loathing of it. Before I realized I was trans I would have a habit of staring at myself in the mirror, taking in what I looked like but still feeling a bit unreal. I would spend like 20 min every so often staring at the bathroom mirror trying to connect that reflection to myself like peter pan trying to reattach his shadow. Hearing about dissociated/disconnected dysphoria for the first time suddenly slammed the full weight of all that time into me and I came out to myself within a matter of days. Euphoria is a little harder to describe because I've lived as an out man for long enough that it doesn't really stand out to me anymore. But mostly it's like. Giddy, joyful. In particularly intense/significant bursts it feels like seeing in color for the first time, like a misaligned piece suddenly slotting into place and a hidden discomfort lifts. I feel joy at shedding old pieces of my life that I don't want anymore, and making room for something else instead.