Here is Why You Still Dissociating Post Transition!
Why are you still dissociating post-transition after achieving congruency? Dr. Z explains how dissociation becomes habituated and harmful.
You completed transition (whatever that is for you). You feel congruent and comfortable with yourself, your body, your gender. Why are you still dissociating? Still having out-of-body experiences, spaced out around loved ones, daydreaming, losing track of time, blacking out? Why do you keep utilizing the defense when you're no longer dealing with severe dysphoria?
Defenses start out adaptive (helpful to cope with difficult events) but quickly become maladaptive and no longer serve us. We get habituated to things—healthy and unhealthy. Look at other coping things you did for dysphoria: drinking, overeating. Those habits become part of identity until you modify them. Dissociation is exactly the same—at one point helpful, but you engaged with it long enough that it became habituated.
The longer you lived with gender dysphoria, the more likely dissociation continues post-transition. There's correlation between how long you utilized this defense versus limited time you spent with it.
Watch to find out why this is problematic (post-transition you want to connect to yourself—especially if you modified your body, you want to connect to new body parts and holistic sense of self, but dissociating makes it difficult to be present and grounded), how to recognize you're dissociating (people say you're not present, spaced out, you're there but not really there), and what helps reconnect (mindfulness exercises, meditation, relaxation, physical activities, grounding exercises, journaling feelings).
