TW: Potential dysphoria mention, brief mention of sexualizing the female body and long post. Hello, this is my first time posting on this subreddit through mobile. I hope this is okay to ask. I’m an (21) AFAB person who is currently questioning their gender. I bring up gender here in the BPD sub because I desire to know if I’m just having symptoms of BPD or if something more is going on. So, to start it’s common for me to have symptoms such as disassociation, feeling like I’m living in third person view (almost like a floating head disconnected from my body), maladaptive daydreaming, and low self esteem. I focus on these symptoms because I’m having a hard time deciphering if I’m just disconnected from reality in general or if I’m showing signs of dysphoria. It doesn’t help that I grew up following what my parents and others wanted to me to do or act. I also have religious trauma from Christianity (despite my parents not being religious at all but I converted myself due to fear of hell) which affected most of my childhood (mainly teen me) so I eventually destroyed all my desires and well, what part of me I had left because I feared God would send me to hell. I’m an atheist now and I am in therapy and medicated. I always put aside my desires and was always used to be told what to do, now that I’m older and an adult, I’ve been able to make decisions for myself. And this is where I get confused about my gender. I won’t go into all the signs and things that occurred throughout my life in regards to my gender but ill sum it up like this. 

So, my therapist asked me what I wanted to look like…like what was my ideal body type? And what I desired? Well, I’ve always wanted to be like a man and have a chest and be without a shirt during swimming. I don’t like my female chest. I remember finally gaining weight after I left high school because I had issues gaining weight as a child due to medical issues and me just being skinny in general. I wasn’t unhealthy, I just had trouble gaining weight. Now that I have weight I was confused about where it went to on my body and how feminine it made me look. I was disappointed. Further things include a desire to have a deeper voice, a disconnect from my feminine name, and never feeling like I was a true girl/woman. I remember thinking as a kid “Why didn’t I feel like other girls?”. As a kid (and sometimes now) I desired to be one of the boys/more boy like and was often frustrated I was born a girl. 

With my summed up signs (some of them) out of the way, I used to complain about being a girl  as a kid to my mother and my mother would reply “well your a girl and that how you were born”. So, I thought what I felt was normal and accepted the fact that I was a girl. But besides that there’s something that’s throwing me off. 

Growing up, I thought appearances were for other people and assumed that I would need to grow up in this curvy sexy feminine body. I grew up and realized appearances was about what you desired and not what society says (and that you don't have to look a certain way for your man while in a relationship). On top of this, I've dealt with serious medical issues as a child and love with a life long condition that involves yearly procedural checkups. As a kid, I thought it was kind of cool in a medical sense but I eventually stopped caring about what I looked like especially when I got diagnosed with scoliosis which was bordering on the severe line. I bring this up because I have a weird relationship with my body, as almost as if I’m a living medical conundrum. 

Furthermore, I did my research and thought about doing HRT. I thought I wanted the effects of HRT until some doubts came in. I worried I wouldn’t like how HRT would affect my body and that I would continue to feel like the person in the mirror was somebody else like I usually feel. Would I regret HRT? My physical body changing sounded scary. Then I realized I could look like my dad, the same person who's responsible for most of my trauma and someone I never wanted to be or act like. So when my therapist asked what I desired to look like, I do have a image in my head but the more I thought about the realistic changes that could occur on HRT as how I actually look in real life, the more I don't know what I wanted. I was so used to people telling me what the right thing was to do and I often trusted other people more and never trusted myself or my emotions. And now? I don't know what I desire. It does help I also have major depressive disorder and premnestural dysphoic disorder. So with those two and dealing with BPD, depresssion tends to kill my desire. 

Besides the depression,I used to wear comfortable clothes (sweats, t-shirts, and baggy clothing) because I don't like to bring attention to myself or my body. I remember during high school when trying out dresses for prom (wondering why fine clothing didn't feel right on me as I usually have feminine clothing anyways) my mother and a family friend made a comment about how I finally gained weight and no longer had a bony behind. One of the younger adults including my mother had me then turn around and show them (I was fully clothed). It was uncomfortable and it made me feel uncomfortable wearing fitted clothes. I don't like being curvy in a feminine way a I have always hated my kchest and never wanted a female chest. But I also hated the sexualizing that came with it too, it was disgusting and I grew up with intrusive thoughts surrounding my body and a fear of people starting at my curves.  

So, at the end I the day I know I desire top surgery 100% and am confident to make that decision. Yet I'm confused on whether or not I identify as nonbinary or full on male. I want nothing to do with being a female, looking like a female, and society percoeving me as female. Yet somehow I don't look bad as a female. As much as Idon't desire to be a female, I somehow worry about being ugly if I desired to fully transition I shouldn't be but it is also tied in with my fear of regret of transition? I also worry that this may just be a low self esteem issue but I don't know. It's okay to not be or look like society’s version of a girl but when I try to be a girl in “my own way” the thought of labeling myself as a woman feels disgusting to me. But sometimes I think that maybe I'm overthinking all of this? Am I just so disconnected from reality that I'm not used to being fully there and feeling like I'm actually being in my physical body and not some ghost? Do I feel like I need to go on HRT so I won't be perceived  as female despite me not being sure if I want to do HRT? How do I know I desire HRT if I don't care about how I look despite me not wanting to be perceived as female? Do I feel like I need to go on HRT just because people would not take me seriously as a nonbinary person if only got top surgery? At the end of the day, I want some people (family, friends, some part of society) to take me seriously. I understand I can't accept that from everyone or the public which I've accepted.

I know this was long but I appreciate anyone who has read this far. I wanted to know if ayone felt the same way or had insight/advice to this? Thank you!