11th April 2024
Derealisation & Disphoria
I don't think this is going to be a vent, but I'm not too sure. It might be. Anyway.
P.S. yeah this ended up being a vent, my bad.
There's a song that's been haunting me for the past two days. It's I'd Rather Sleep by Kero Kero Bonito. I interpret it as a melancholic, nostalgic song about early adulthood, about missing the comforts and simplicity of childhood, and about the confusion, disillusionment, and mental health issues that adulthood brings. I've struggled with derealisation for my entire life (I suffer from severe memory loss as a result), and the surreal nature of this song really resonates with me.
A quick tangent: my psychologist and I suspect that I might have some sort of derealisation disorder, but we're yet to identify it. We can't look more into it until I can next afford to see her, which could be weeks away.
Anyway, this song for me has always been about derealisation and stuff. But yesterday I found this little animation that totally changed my view of it.
Y'know those animation memes that float around the animation community from time to time, where people make short little sketchy animations to accompany songs? And like, the whole community gets a song and everyone makes different animations around it? If you do, you know what I mean. I saw one of those yesterday for I'd Rather Sleep, and I really liked it. The art style was really cute and expressive - it was one of those things where you watch a YouTube video and you're like "oh this is great, I bet it's got thousands of views" and then you look down and it's got, like, 400.
But there's this one shot in the video that lasts like three seconds, and it fucking broke me.
It was just a shot of a girl in her room watching TV. Everything in the shot was pink; there was posters for Adventure Time and Care Bears on the wall; the girl's back was to us, and she was watching a TV that was switching between static and shows like Regular Show and Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated.
There's two reasons why this shot impacted me so much. First of all, it reminded me of my partner. She had a rough childhood, but she found refuge in watching TV shows, in particular shows like the ones shown on the posters and the TV (she loves three of the four shows I mentioned just now). The girl even looks a lot like her from behind, which is an insane thing to say, because everyone looks the same from behind at that level of detail, but anyway.
The second reason was much harder to figure out. Something about that shot - about the innocence shown in it, and the perspective the song gave it as a bittersweet memory of a better time, really resonated with me in a way I still can't quite identify. It's a totally unfamiliar emotion to me. I suppose it's comparable to that obscure sorrow, whatever it's called, of nostalgia for a time you never experienced.
I spent my whole childhood wishing I was born a girl. I know now that, had I been born a girl, I still would have ended up being nonbinary. But I've always known that my identity lies on the feminine side of the spectrum, and that my body unfortunately lies on the masculine side.
A lot of trans people talk about experiencing depression from the fact that they got the wrong childhood. For example, trans women who grew up as boys who will never get to experience a girl's childhood like most women have. I've never personally felt this disphoria, until seeing that shot. I think it was seeing a girl's childhood depicted in that way: the song and the animation ended up framing the shot (not in the cinematographic sense) as a personal memory for the protagonist, and allowed me as a viewer to experience it as an insider of sorts, rather than a spectator looking in. It felt like an absolute kick in the guts.
Today, as could be expected, my gender disphoria was pretty bad. I've been at uni since 10am, and I've been sat in the cafe between lectures to pass the time. About an hour ago now, a girl sat across from me who gave me terribly gender envy. She was incredibly beautiful, and had so many characteristics that I've always wished I had. This made me really sad and uncomfortable, but I didn't move: both out of a mixture of not wanting to make her feel bad, and some sort of toxic fascination that I can't really explain.
Just as she got up to leave, a song started to play over the speakers (ambient music always plays in this cafe): I'd Rather Sleep by Kero Kero Bonito. I've been in a weird mood ever since. It's one of those moments where a coincidence makes you feel like the universe is fucking with you for kicks.
I really want a more feminine body, but I'm scared of what my family and loved ones will say. I'm sure I'll work it out one day. I'm still young, I've got time to work this out. It just sucks that I have to endure this kind of thing in the meantime. This is the worst my disphoria has been in weeks.