Oddbean

@420f26f4 what hope do you have? you are gonna find out 🥰. The worst and best part of transitioning is that we all do it anyway. Cause nobody ALWAYS feels like it’s working but we all do it anyway. in time, hopefully, those negative feelings are less frequent. To me, getting hot isn’t the goal, being myself is. So when I see a hot lady feel bad, that has nothing to do with my journey to be me. I can relate to them but I try not to see them as proof of concept. They don’t owe me happiness for me to have faith in myself. A note: given that you have some truly gorgeous trans women reading this, I’m not sure what those hypothetical women are supposed to feel about your post. People feel what they feel. It’s hard enough to let yourself feel something without feeling responsible for how that makes someone else feel.

@420f26f4 I don't think self-confidence like that can actually come from looks, even if one's looks happens to be what one is focusing one's lack of confidence on. At least for me, if I could do all the things and look like a goddess I would still be haunted just as much by the same traumatic experiences. These issues don't really care exactly what they focus on, but will just attack the first thing they lay their eyes on. Shit finds a way. Self-acceptance is super hard. I've more or less given up pursuing it in the mirror. Even the rare moments of euphoria when things look good for once do nothing in the end. I think the only way I'll make peace with myself is through trauma work. Or that's me anyway. Don't know how applicable it is to others, but not entirely useless at least? Hopefully?

@420f26f4 That’s exactly the opposite lesson I take from it honestly. When I see gorgeous women admit that they struggle with dysphoria or self confidence it seems to me that’s extremely powerful evidence that those things aren’t based in external reality but are lies society has told us and our brains have absorbed. It reminds me that we often see each other more clearly than we see ourselves and I remind myself of that on my own hard days. We are all in this together. 💜