Faceapp triggering severe dysphoria?

How can I dress for 40 years, and study gender and read and research and basically live online as a girl and live almost full time on the weekends for ever, and never once experience dysphoria or worry about my identity, carefully scrutinize and watch myself, search internally for any dysphoria and not find it...

and then suddenly have that stupid app trigger me so hard that a lifetime of despair crushes me to the ground sobbing I am basically in the yellow pages trying not to lose another moment?

It was like some kind of faustian torture-mirror from a Ray Bradbury story.

Wen4cd,
Dysphoria is only a problem to me when I have to do male mode which is very rarely these days .

If "Faceapp " triggers dysphoria the simple answer is stop using it , you sound as if you are out enough not to worry about the need for it . As I'm out everyday I can't see the point in using it , people appear to be happy enough with how I look , OK it's not perfect but then who is ?

After a lifetime of gender "issues" I finally started seeing a gender therapist at 45. She asked if I had dysphoria. I said oh no, I've never felt that. Then we went on to discuss what exactly gender dysphoria actually is. And then I changed my answer to, well yeah, I've always felt that, but I just thought that was normal and what everybody feels. Hahahahahahahahahaha.........

What can I say, when it hits you, it hits you.

It was faceapp that actually really set off my dysphoria after years of no gender issues - my absence from this forum shows how long I was "normal".

It's why I caution against using it and say people should tag their photo as being a faceapp shot

By the time I was 10, in 1950, I knew I was different to other boys but quickly learned that to tell anyone would almost certainly lead to disaster (and if you are not familiar with the penalties cross dressers could suffer in those early years just read the very inspirational story of Lynn Conway).

And so I dressed in secret for 70 years, never telling anyone about it nor discussing lt with any health professionals. And all the time I lived with shame and fear but somehow managed to live a reasonably happy life with my beautiful wife and children. But 4 years ago I failed to hide a photo and my wife of 50 years found it. My first words to her where “Do you want me to move out” Fortunately she said “No”.

Since then my desire to dress publically has grown stronger and stronger, firstly I joined a support group and attended a 2 day Formal. The feeling as I went out into the streets for the first time was like a volcanic eruption and my gender dysphoria has worsened ever since.

And now, at the age of 80, I am transitioning and am publically out to my retirement village and the local community. Acceptance has been pretty good but transition Les difficult at the age of 80 as my friends in the village have never previously met a transgender person.

But to return to the point of this thread, yes it is possible for the desire to remain ?subdued? for a long period but then almost overwhelm you.

I repressed it for 30 years! Then through a 34 year and 5 month marriage! My wife passed away and I mourned for a few months! It hit me like a tsunami! 5 years later, I am on HRT for 2+ years and am 24/7/365! I have almost never been so happy in my entire life! At least, not this long! A good gender therapist/counselor is a great help to sort it all out! Best wishes on your journey!! Hugs Lana Mae

@Lana Mae I am glad you are finding happiness. It will sort out one way or the other, but I have a personal history that has caused me quite a serious and harsh distrust of therapists and/or counselors, so I am not sure that will ever be an option, but somehow it will work out! thanks *hug*

@Stephanie58 it was not much better in the 80's. When I was 10 in 1984 I made the mistake of trusting a therapist and telling him about this "girl inside me," and got locked into a mental hospital and force fed anti-psychotics for schizophrenia. They wold lock me in a room until I took the medicine, and constantly use every manipulative trick in the book to make me accept that I needed meds. I had to fight a years-long war to keep my agency and to keep this 'girl inside me' alive, and am still traumatized from it 36 years later.

@CharlotteCD. I didn't ever use faceapp until this week out of sheer curiosity. In my 'modeling' hobby, I have always had a strong ethic about never altering my photos or painting a false picture. Makeup only, lighting, angles, but never digital manipulation. In this instance, I wanted to see what would happen if I just stuck a very "male" looking pic in there with no makeup. I didn't expect it to break my heart.

@Nadine I am not going to let my bad history with therapists make me a douche too much, but that's kind of exactly what I would expect a gender therapist to do. I don't really want to re-edit the experiences of my past through a gender dysphoria lens to validate what I am experiencing in the present. I've had plenty of sad moments dealing with gender and desire all my life, but this new 'strong panic not to lose any more time' is a thing that only exists in the Now. It hit hard, and literally floored me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wen4cd

@Stephanie58 it was not much better in the 80's. When I was 10 in 1984 I made the mistake of trusting a therapist and telling him about this "girl inside me," and got locked into a mental hospital and force fed anti-psychotics for schizophrenia. They wold lock me in a room until I took the medicine, and constantly use every manipulative trick in the book to make me accept that I needed meds. I had to fight a years-long war to keep my agency and to keep this 'girl inside me' alive, and am still traumatized from it 36 years later.
.

---

It was the same for me in the 60's. After a psychotic breakdown in college I told the psychiatrist that I wanted to be a girl and hated my genitals. He just added another line in my mental illness folder. Fifty years later everything had changed, I found a psychologist with gender experience and transitioned at 70! I am so grateful that the medical and psychological establishment finally understood people like us before it was too late for me. Wen, you should try them again!:battingeyelashes:

@Dorit, think I accidentally deleted my reply going in to edit it.

I'll try to rephrase the thing.

It's the classic "Thelma and Louise" situation. They need to flee to Mexico, but Louise can't force herself to go through Texas, because of trauma. So stuck, due to the nature of trauma they end up off a cliff.

I'm not sure I can ever put myself in the hands of a medical establishment that I felt violated and assaulted by to reach that goal, and I am extremely bitter that they are the gatekeepers, and extremely bitter that they are suffered to exist, to be honest.

The fact that you have to accept a diagnosis of any mental illness to begin to transition is nothing short of a crime. And the fact that I would have to even speak to one of these people and give them the time of day to even stick my toes on this sort of journey is the biggest reason that I most likely never will, at least in this country.

If I do, it will be a very very bad day for me beause even the thought of one of them holding any sort of power over my destiny again fills me with panic and triggers a bunch of really nasty things.

Nadine,
You make a very good point about feelings . When it first hit me at the age of 8-9 I didn't consider I was different I just thought most boys felt the same way , it was part of growing up .

Chaelotte ,
I'm sorry to see you use the word " Normal " . It's hard to say what is normal , it's possibly more important to say what state makes you happier , trying to live a " Normal " life possibly screws more people up .

Quote:

---

If "Faceapp " triggers dysphoria the simple answer is stop using it ..............

---

That would make sense.

Patient says to doctor: "Doc, it hurts when I do this." Doctor says to patient: "Well don't do that."

@Wen4cd: I saw the title from outside and thought it might have been another person experiencing what I remembered you mentioning in an earlier discussion.


I've never used Face App, but I can empathise with the escalation.


I arrived here at the end of 2016 having dressed just 10 times the entire year and having a beard in male mode. ( Sensitive skin plus a hair type with 85% propensity to ingrowth meant I could not keep clean shaven, but I was mentally balanced ).


I had already learned the basics of makeup ( mainly all foundation ), but in the first half of 2017, having seen the presentations in this community and without being aware of possible consequences, I pursued improvement relentlessly.


I did a lot of stupid stuff, I shaved a lot more, and that had acute consequences upon my skin,.. but still I continued pushing. It took 2 months to recover, and then I spent the next 2 years getting my face accustomed to epilating. Today, epilating is my fastest and most convenient method of removing facial and body hair. Now I'm making progress on the next phase.


When my face is made up, I'm reasonably pacified without any editing. However, when I'm not made up, it's my default thought. I could just sit and think about it for hours ( with some comforting warmth from a halogen lamp :) ). I can no longer tolerate the sight of facial or body hair. I haven't dressed for nearly 3 months, but I've been working constantly on the facial hair, and I intend to continue. Working on my facial hair calms me.


So when I read someone new in the CDer section talking about beginning makeup, they are usually approaching it with excitement and fun. If I reply, I do so in the same tone, but I give a gentle hint to be careful,.. and I leave it at that.


I hope you find your calm'er.

- L.

Hatred is a powerfully self defeating thought pattern.

Basically you are letting the thing you hate the most , hurt you the most.
You are letting the thing you despair of controlling you, control you.
It's a viscious cycle.

It doesnt matter how you got here.
What happens next will tell your tale.

Sorry if that sound harsh.
It is.

I say it from a place of experience and good intention.
My mom would simply say "Don't let the *******s keep you down"

@Kaitlyn I know.... tell me about it. I never thought I would look down some road I considered going down and find the path blocked by my literal demons from the past. I'd honestly rather have a troop of transphobic Nazis hucking rocks at me all the time than to let one single "mental health professional" get the smug satisfaction that they 'professionally helped' me, and that's not a very nice way to feel, but once bitten. (Or in my instance, once locked in a cage and psychologically tortured and forcibly held down and drugged over and over while screaming, and then having to learn to induce vomiting and learn to do it for years in secret to get the thioridazne back out they forced you to swallow, because you listened to your lying mother and trusted that the nice people were really there to help you)

Some folks on reddit are speaking of alternate paths to bypass these gatekeepers in some informed consent states and also some tricks with tele-medicine over the internet, and I might research that further before making any decisions.

@Lydianne That sounds like a bad place to be stuck in, and I can see why you'd be getting the hair dealt with asap. I hope you can get back to your makeup. I'm a painter, and my face is me favorite canvas. I think this is why the faceapp thing hit me so hard. I stick in a 'male' pic with no makeup and the picture that came back had no real makeup either, and I'm not used to seeing my face feminized without the armor of makeup

I use makeup as a mask, and have gotten over-used to that practice. I mean look at any of my pics, that's not digital manip, it's stark white foundation that I special order, and before that came along I literally used clown makeup.

@ Krisi I did stop using it. It wasn't a practice or a habit I needed to stop obsessing over, I literally used it once for 5 minutes and stuck 3 pics into it to test the app, and one of the results did all of this 'damage' instantly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CharlotteCD

It was faceapp that actually really set off my dysphoria after years of no gender issues - my absence from this forum shows how long I was "normal".

It's why I caution against using it and say people should tag their photo as being a faceapp shot

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wen4cd

@CharlotteCD. I didn't ever use faceapp until this week out of sheer curiosity. In my 'modeling' hobby, I have always had a strong ethic about never altering my photos or painting a false picture. Makeup only, lighting, angles, but never digital manipulation. In this instance, I wanted to see what would happen if I just stuck a very "male" looking pic in there with no makeup. I didn't expect it to break my heart.

---

This is exactly why I will never use faceapp. I'm sure it's fun for a lot of us here, and it's a tool for those of us that can't normally present feminine. But I'm not sure I could deal with the unrealistic expectations that the app would most likely put on me. I do my best with what I have to work with. And I get way more satisfaction when my results come out Well.

Trauma is so horrible.

I'm sorry that these things happened and raise intense triggered emotions.
I hope that somehow you can beat them.

I hope that you can understand that not everybody is "like that" and there are people who will treat folks with respect and dignity.




You have all my best wishes

@Kaitlyn

thanks, I'll try yo keep that in mind ;)

I mean I'll keep in mind so I don't throw a drink in someone's face at a cocktail party if they say that's what they do for a living, but I won't ever be using their professional services or recommending anyone else ever do so for any reason.

Wen4cd,
I can understand now your reasoning over " FaceApp" and your thoughts on makeup . I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience with so called " Professionals " , I have to see them differently as they partly saved me from doing something really stupid and possibly ending my life .

I'm like Lydianne , shaving has to happen but I guess I'm luckier that I don't have the same hair growth or skin problem . When I see myself in the mirror I'm trying to ignore the man and just shave the image every morning . I apply makeup every morning no matter what I'm doing , to a point it is a mask to reduce the shaving marks but once concealed makeup enhances features and softens others so I look less male but I won't say it makes me passable as a female but it's enough for people to accept I fit that role . That is the important point for me being out everyday means I have little use for " FaceApp " or similiar apps , accepting what they see is what they get is a great leveller , most GGs live their life on that basis and that's good enough for me .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wen4cd

..... but that's kind of exactly what I would expect a gender therapist to do. I don't really want to re-edit the experiences of my past through a gender dysphoria lens to validate what I am experiencing in the present.

---

When things happen to us as children we often think that as adults the same will recur. But don't forget that was when you were a child. Reading over this post it is obvious you had horrible experiences with mental health professionals. But as a child you were unable to do one key thing, get up and walk out. Your parents were in charge before, now you should be the one in charge of yourself and the professional care that others provide for you.

I quoted what you wrote above as I want to make sure I clarify, my therapist did not "do" anything. Most of the times I barely give her the opportunity to even speak during our sessions. She doesn't really "do" much besides be a safe space for me to speak what I think about the world.

@Teresa that's a good way to keep your chin up! I've been trying this and in the last week it's been a lot easier to accept what I see.

The faceapp experience did teach me a whole lot. Conscious, self-aware dysphoria was really the one missing thing from the picture. I am grateful for the whole horrifying experience because it almost felt like a final puzzle piece fitting in, and now I feel a lot more in touch with that emotion and am catching myself before I sort of 'shut down' and pull my identity locus back to a safer 'zone' but one with much less vitality.

@Nadine Yeah, and maybe it is kinder today. Maybe in 2021 if I was a 10 year old and told some doctor I had a girl in my head, it would be a whole different story. But, yes, I am 46 now and live as I see fit. I think I will spend all that therapy money on voice coaching instead ;)

Wen4cd,
When I was your age some twenty+ years ago , through a bad period I was referred to a therapist , he turned out to be an expensive waste of time . Even then I had come to the conclusion most of us are born with this trait , he totally ruled it out telling me it was utter rubbish . My gut feeling knew he was wrong , modern thinking has now proved him wrong . At the time the only solution they could come up with to ensure I didn't wish to end my life again was a high dosage of anti depressants .

@Teresa One time in my 20's I over-ate at a "Chinese Mega Buffet" and almost OD'd on the high-msg content of the delicious food there.
My heart was having arrhythmia and skipping a beat and I was afraid I would just drop dead, so I went to the doctor the next day at the local clinic. I had little idea what was happening, but after a 5 minute consultation, the doctor assured me that he knew what was really wrong, that I was just stressed and depresssed, and wrote me a script for a popular brand of antidepressants. (Which I tossed out)

A couple months later he tried to sexually harass his new receptionist, and her husband (a friend of mine) knocked him out cold on the doorstep of his own clinic with one mighty haymaker, and then he was ran out of town and closed his practice and was never seen again.

Now, don't get me wrong, I always consider ending my life. I'm used to suicidal ideation as the go-to image in my head when facing seemingly impossible circumstance, and it's always there as my ace-in-the-hole, and I've lived like that for years.

But taking ssri meds for that would simply "prove" to my broken-ness to me in such a way that it would be much MORE likely, not less, that I would act on these images. So I just start muttering "better-off dead than on meds" to myself and carry on knowing that ending my life would at least be a free act of my own agency, and preferable to a condition of drugged societal servitude imposed by some pharma conglomerate and it's interpretation of emotional and social norms.

Wen4cd,
I console myself by knowing those thoughts weren't premeditated , I vowed never to go down that road again . The medication backfired because my wife thought it might be the start of a cure but instead I lost all my guilt of dressing , what I hated most were the side effects because I didn't really care about anything , I was ceasing to function . At that time I had my business to run and kids to educate so I had to get weaned off Prozac . Just before my separation I was prescibed anti depreassnts again , I took them for a week then dumped them , I couldn't live with the side effects .

Now at almost 70 my life is now good because I've found the balance that was missing for most of my life , I guess it poses the question , " Does happiness always come at a price ?"

I am happy that you have found a way to live that you can not only 'live with' but also maximize your vitality and individuation.

I can relate. I've tried face app to see if it would make me look more feminine and blend better as a female and it was a disaster. All I saw was the guy I used to be. No filter or mod made me happy with what I saw. It made me so depressed. I uninstalled it and vowed to never use it again.

Also, try not to look at mtf before and after pictures too much. So many of them are fake. Like all those men suddenly turn into babes. Yeah right.

I tried face app FTM and it freaked me out it looked so close to me 10 years ago..

We all have triggers; whether they are relate to our self identity, or other parameters.

Personally, I haven't used, or felt inclined to use, faceapp, for the simple reason that it will present me with an image I feel that I will never achieve, which will push me into a depressive mood.

My dysphoria is ever present, day-to-day, so I don't need to find other ways to make it worse.

I use FaceApp, and it does a good job of improving my looks, but I have posted samples of my own work with makeup and the FaceApp version, which I use to try to improve my makeup skills. Many times the differences are small.
It is a great help when I can't do makeup, and then the differences are large. The various facial editing tools can make me younger, but rather than despise it, I look at what it did and try to figure out how to do the same with makeup.
Hugs, Ellen

That app is a lie.

It would never do something real. I tried once now as a woman to make a male face and it was horrible wrong, not that made me look horrible but it was so.wro.g about my previous male traits.

I think it was made as a toy but not a real tool to predict on how you would look as a woman,.or a male in that case.

For that reason it can be very deceitful and I ignore from the beginning.

I see on IG all the time transgirls, they call themselves like that, but never see their real face, they dream awake .

It's Ike using filters. I understand they could be wanting to look great for future encounter with a prospect partner but when that happen will be deceiful....

Mho

Attachment 320401

Here is example of me with my own makeup skills and then FaceApp suggestion. Yes, it can make a face very different, but it can also point out small changes to make.
Hugs, Ellen