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‘What’s That?’ — A Relationship With My Chest
When Anxiety and Dysphoria collide, ugly thoughts abide.
“What’s that?”, my top surgeon said as she examined my chest. She was staring at the sores on the sides and middle of my breasts, eyeing them suspiciously.
“Oh, I just pick at my chest. Um, anxiety ya know.” She seemed content with that answer. But did she know? Probably not. I can’t imagine most top surgeons even understanding the complex feelings that come with having dysphoria unless they’re trans themselves. It can be debilitating.
Truth is, I do pick at, scratch and rub my chest around the breasts. But the reason can be much more sinister than just constant anxiety.
Chest dysphoria can give you the strongest urges of just wanting a flat chest immediately. Not having that flat chest brings on intense distress, leading to me picking, and scratching, and rubbing around my chest. I either feel in the middle of the breasts and try to feel a semblance of what a flat chest would feel like, or in the deep recesses of my mind I just want to hurt them or cut them off. It sounds very brutal, but my rational brain would never let that happen.
In my dreams, they’ve been cut off and for some reason painlessly. Or I’ll go into a changing room and come back out and simultaneously my…
