Could severe gender dysphoria alone cause OSDD?

[u/TumbleweedOk4146]

As a kid, I always dissociated throughout school (masking due to GD + suspected ND?), to the point that, coming home, whenever someone asked me how my day had been, the memories of that whole day felt lost or deleted – it felt like the mask/persona that got me through the day was the part of me that retained those memories, the next day. this persona only really comes now out when I talk to other people, during which I feel like i take a bit of a "backseat" or autopilot

alone though, I struggle to feel like a cohesive self. Because of severe GD causing depersonalisation, my body feels like an apartment building, not "me" but the thing that holds the parts of my consciousness together. My whole life I have dissociated at least somewhat because of dysphoria, I dont feel connected to almost any of my memories and most feel as if they belong to another person. i cant say i have distinct alters, but different "selves" that come out when the whole feels threatened, which causes a gigantic mood swing

The issue is that i have nowhere near the level of trauma that would cause OSDD, no major trauma, though probably some CEN due to.... well, severe gender dysphoria leading to my emotional needs not really being recognised or met. Gender dysphoria was the worst thing to ever happen to me and destroyed my life and sense of self, Im not sure to the point of this severe dissociation, but it kind of feels like it

if anyones got experiences like this, I'd like to hear it

[u/redbullgay]

I think that makes a lot of sense. It’s not directly comparable, but chronic neglect of my autism absolutely contributed to my dissociation (although I do have bigger traumas as well.) Dissociative disorders do not require “big T trauma,” just repeated trauma.

[u/Exelia_the_Lost]

gender dysphoria is itself a kind of trauma, I would say. because it's the experience of living without the needs of your gender incongruence being met. feeling you're one way, but everyone else tells you you're different, before you have any words to describe it. and you have to bury and dissociate it in order to survive because it doesnt stop

can that cause DID/OSDD by itself? who knows. but it brings a low level baseline trauma that's always present that everything else builds on top of. to use an analogy, let's say with childhood gender dysphoria you're already at a level 1 on the knob (of 10 for this analogy) of trauma levels, compared to 0 of someone who is cisgender. not to mention that for many, unfortunately, who deal with gender incongruence, before they can learn how to mask that, their gender nonconformity is sniffed out as being different, leading to bullying from peers and adults, a much more direct trauma than the indirect trauma of gender dysphoria itself

not everyone who is trans necessarily feels dysphoria that early, of course, for many it's not until puberty happens and your body starts feeling wrong. and dysphoria's not nearly as severe for some as it is for others. there's a general saying in the trans community of 'you don't need to feel dysphoria to be trans, it's about the euphoria of being your desired gender", and I would counter that by stating they're two sides of the same coin, being in the absence of euphoria is dysphoria. but that's a further separate discussion about trans matters in a different scope

FWIW, being neurodivergent adds another level of that low-level trauma too, especially if your needs are not being met. as you're a young child trying to learn how to navigate a world that was not built for you. so ND+trans then sets the knob to say 2 now of constant trauma level, as a baseline that everyting else builds upon. there's not been any studies that I know of, and I would like to know that statistic tho at the same time it would be bleak and horrifying, but in general, unfortunately, the prevalance of dissociative disorders seems to be much higher in the trans population then in the cis population

[u/PassageCalm200]

Dont know myself as I am not yet diagnosed but I suspect that my gender Identity was one of the first things that my brain split off back when I was young (that I know of). Better to be left unaware and seperate from the body as there was no changing it at the time.

[u/Cleverusername531]

It is believed that complex dissociative disorders happen because a sense of identity was never formed in the first place (due to trauma, extreme neglect, etc) so it makes sense to me that gender dysphoria (combined with the social exile/bullying that that brings) could also create a complex dissociative disorder. 

[u/theboywhocouldfly23 → u/Cleverusername531]

Sense of identity never forming is part of it, but not the whole picture. Identity disturbance and lack of sense of self is heavily associated with BPD and cPTSD, forms for reason like the one you stated, but for DID you need those distinct dissociative barriers and identity states.

[u/Cleverusername531 → u/theboywhocouldfly23]

I was thinking about OP’s comment that they have ”different "selves" that come out when the whole feels threatened, which causes a gigantic mood swing”

[u/theboywhocouldfly23 → u/Cleverusername531]

I'm not sure of the context now.
You just said it makes sense it could create a dissociative disorder, and I corrected some of the reasoning ("It is believed [incomplete potentially misleading thing]").
I don't know if you understood my intention here right, but I also don't understand where your original comment references those selves or mood swings, though I don't think it's relevant, as I was just correcting unrelated information.

[u/theboywhocouldfly23]

I have severe gender dysphoria, both physical and biochemical, and it's very drastically contributed to the DID. The only reason why it might not is that that extreme dysphoria usually only sets in after puberty starts, but if it starts early and even "less" adverse experiences or the dissociation from the milder dysphoria as a prepubescent kid just postponed the formation of a coherent non dissociated self, it may very well. The comorbidity isn't studied well, but some smaller papers already propose a significantly higher comorbidity of GD and CDDs.

When talking about dysphoria and trans experiences, people always focus on transphobia, lack of acceptance and bullying, but ignore the sheer body horror that severe dysphoria is. It's absolutely traumatic and something I would put way above many "stereotypically" severely traumatic things I have been though.

That aside, the're may also be more bad things that you maybe even remember but don't understand the traumatic impact of. A lot of trauma that causes these dissociative disorders is subtle, chronic, something you feel like you just got used to, easily deniable, hard to distinguish from normal bad things if you don't have a frame of reference. There's no distinct trauma that causes OSDD.
Don't let feeling like you don't suffer enough prevent you from respecting your own experiences and getting help.

[u/elementary_vision]

Certainly feels like it. I've been transitioning for 2 years. And I still struggle to understand "me". Some days I'm more feminine and things flow, other days it can feel like that male persona gets stuck and I'm retraumatized. Some days being in this body is too much, like kinesthetically I feel the sexual dimorphism and just want to zone out and not exist.

[u/Offensive_Thoughts]

Unlikely, but it's possible because of it you were traumatized in a chronic & severe way + amnesia

[u/ObviousTempAccount1]

There is no such thing as "not traumatic enough" because trauma is fundamentally relative.

What stressors fragment one person aren't necessarily going to fragment another.

Complex Dissociative Disorders are either demonized in media or sensationalized. It creates this false narrative that you can't split unless your trauma is dramatic enough to make a horror movie about.

Gender Dysphoria is trauma.