Gender dysphoria can feel different for everyone. It can manifest as distress, depression, anxiety, restlessness or unhappiness. It might feel like anger or sadness, or feeling slighted or negative about your body, or like there are parts of you missing.
To be diagnosed with gender dysphoria as a teenager or adult, you must have experienced significant distress for at least six months due to at least two of the following: marked incongruence between your experienced and expressed gender and your primary or secondary sex characteristics.
While you can "self-test" yourself or your child for gender dysphoria, this should only be considered the first step toward a diagnosis.
The condition may start with biological changes that happen before birth. The anxiety, stress and general discomfort associated with gender dysphoria may be linked to social stigma. Gender nonconforming children, adolescents and adults often face discrimination and verbal harassment.
Overview. Body dysmorphic disorder is a mental health condition in which you can't stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance — a flaw that appears minor or can't be seen by others. But you may feel so embarrassed, ashamed and anxious that you may avoid many social situations.
Various types of dysphoria include rejection sensitive dysphoria, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is a condition that exists because of society, not individual pathology.
BDD is most likely to start in your teens or early adult years. People usually develop BDD around 12 or 13 years old. Two-thirds of people with BDD develop it before age 18. However, BDD can also start in adulthood.
Dysphoria describes an intense emotional state that can be a symptom of many mental health diagnoses. It is a profound state of dissatisfaction and unease. Many describe it as feeling unhappy or sad. Symptoms may manifest themselves in depression, anxiety, irritability, and difficulty concentrating.
To put in simpler terms, a person with gender dysphoria is not mentally ill; they are dissatisfied with the gender assigned at their birth. A person with body dysmorphia has a disorder in which they perceive their body or face as “ugly,” “fat,” or otherwise unattractive despite medical or personal reassurances.
No one knows exactly what causes gender dysphoria. Some experts believe that hormones in the womb, genes, and cultural and environmental factors may be involved.
Unlike gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia doesn't respond to the changes we make to our bodies. Individuals with body dysmorphia and eating disorders like anorexia don't actually feel better about their body when they use eating disorder behaviors, even if their body is physically transformed.
Dysphoria is a state of generalized unhappiness, restlessness, dissatisfaction, or frustration, and it can be a symptom of several mental health conditions.
While symptoms of gender dysphoria often appear in early childhood, it's not uncommon for them to first appear during adolescence or, in some cases, even adulthood. Also, feelings of dysphoria don't always accompany gender incongruence; in some cases, it may develop years later – or not at all.
According to DSM-5-TR, the prevalence of gender dysphoria is 0.005–0.014% for adult natal males and 0.002-0.003% for adult natal females. In Europe, 1 per 30,000 adult males and 1 per 100,000 adult females seek sexual reassignment surgery (SRS).
A recent study investigated the volume of grey matter in individuals with GD and found that they had a smaller volume in the left posterior superior hemisphere of the cerebellum compared to male controls and a smaller volume of the right inferior orbitofrontal cortex compared to female controls.
While not a mental health diagnosis on its own, dysphoria is a symptom associated with a variety of mental illnesses, some of which include stress, anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders.
Psychology professor Darryl Hill insists that gender dysphoria is not a mental disorder, but rather that the diagnostic criteria reflect psychological distress in children that occurs when parents and others have trouble relating to their child's gender variance.
Gender dysphoria history: Of the 55 TM patients included in our study, 41 (75%) reported feeling GD for the first time by age 7, and 53 (96%) reported first experiencing GD by age 13 (Table 2). A total of 80% of patients reported that feelings of GD were among their earliest childhood memories.
Gender dysphoria might start in childhood and continue into adolescence and adulthood. Or you might have periods in which you no longer experience gender dysphoria. You might also experience gender dysphoria around the time of puberty or much later in life.
What does dysphoria feel like? Gender dysphoria can feel different for everyone. It can manifest as distress, depression, anxiety, restlessness or unhappiness. It might feel like anger or sadness, or feeling slighted or negative about your body, or like there are parts of you missing.
Getting treatment for body dysmorphia
Body dysmorphia can't be cured, and it's a “difficult clinical condition” to manage because “it's a pattern that's very resistant to change,” Durvasula said. But some effective treatments are available. One preferred by many experts is cognitive behavioral therapy.
A teen suffering from gender dysphoria may exhibit a range of feelings and behaviors that are confusing to parents. These patterns typically develop in early childhood. They can also start to emerge as the adolescent grows into a young adult.
The good news is that BDD is diagnosable, treatable and can be improved and managed with proper attention, lifestyle changes and professional support.