"I've had other obsessions, even very bad ones, but they've been easier to disprove.”
I can’t think of a better analogy for what people in thrall to gender are experiencing: 'staring into the darkness so long that you start to hallucinate.'
He describes the same obsessive fixation on the idea that he might be trans, which crashed into his world out of nowhere—from contact with a musical of all things. He then spent years trying to get to the bottom of a question with no possible answer, destroying his mental health in the process. In the end, the only way out was to let it go, to “stop caring.”
The original poster responds, observing that he’s “had other obsessions, even very bad ones, but they've been easier to disprove.” This is something I see all the time in online trans communities and it’s a subject that came up in the conversation I had with Steven last summer:
"For the last few years that I identified as trans, I spent a lot of time trying to ‘solve’ the ideology. It became an obsession for me for a while… I was trying to sort out in my head how all the things I believed could possibly be true at once, and I wasn’t able to solve that. I kept hitting a point where it all just didn’t make sense anymore."
Trying to make the nonsensical make sense traps people in ideology. Steven kept trying to “‘solve’ the ideology.” Because he couldn’t make it add up, because he couldn’t disprove the possibility that had been planted in his mind, he couldn’t move on. I suspect this is one the reasons ‘trans’ ensnares so many book-smart kids, who set out to master a new set of ideas and find themselves up to their necks in quicksand.
The commenter who escaped his own gender obsession responds with what may be the best advice for anyone grappling with gender issues: “I think my main advice would be: deep introspection tells you nothing.”
It's well established that OCD can manifest as fears around sexual orientation (sexual orientation ocd, formerly known as homosexual ocd). Why wouldn't it be possible for gender identity to be the focus of OCD ruminations? This article makes so many points to think about. Change "sexual orientation" to "gender identity" or "transgender" or change "anxiety" and "attraction" to "dysphoria" and "euphoria" and see how familiar it is. Imagine if your "compulsive rituals" are affirmed, celebrated, and even enshrined into law. Imagine if everywhere you turn you see things encouraging you to engage in your anxious questioning?
"At the core of SO-OCD is the feeling of doubt that is common in obsessive compulsive disorder. Deep down, the person with SO-OCD wonders if they are a fraud and if they have been confused about their real self all along."
"For obvious reasons, SO-OCD is extremely psychologically distressing. In an attempt to combat obsessive thoughts, people experiencing this condition develop compulsive rituals. However, no matter how hard they try to dispel the thoughts, they do not go away. And no matter how hard they try to succeed in their self-imposed rituals, such actions do not quiet the thoughts.
The obsessive thoughts associated with SO-OCD can cause confusion and fear. These thoughts can be so distressing that they shut down otherwise functioning, flourishing people."
"In people with SO-OCD, a fleeting thought of attraction can set off a cascade of doubt and terror that is not experienced by most people. Most people would dismiss the thought for what it was: just a thought.
Also confusing is the fact that arousal and anxiety feel quite similar."
https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/so-ocd
I had the same experience while in an emotionally abusive relationship -- trying to "figure it out" just messed me up worse and kept me attached. Learning about narcissism and reading accounts of other people who had experienced the same thing helped -- and letting go of "figuring it out". I was trying to understand from my worldview--a naive one- that couldn't see the love bombing etc as intentional tactics. Thanks Eliza for all you do.