Is there music that alleviates your dysphoria?
Edit: I'm a little worried I may have misused the word "alleviate", which I thought means "to ease a little bit in a non permanent way". Sorry if I accidentally made you all confused. xD
I wrote this in another community the other day:
As to why I insist on buying female centric vinyls, I’m not quite sure, but it could have something to do with my gender dysphoria. I believe the psychological mechanism is too complex for me to even begin to understand, but I think I listen to what I want to become or what I would have wanted to be in the first place, gender-wise (voice, body, clothing, etc.). Maybe vinyl, being an older medium, brings me back to and helps me imagine a childhood that I wish I could have had? I just spitballing here though…
Here is the original post: https://piefed.blahaj.zone/post/821181/comment/4976422#comment_4977719
Can you relate? Is there music that alleviates your dysphoria?
The only thing that alleviates my dysphoria is sitting in it and feeling my emotions for a while. Currently I've been listening through swanskin's Boymoder album a lot, it's such an emotional journey from beginning to end. Honestly I think everyone should listen to it even if you're not trans, it's so so good.
To quote my SoundCloud bio: "If the music is loud then I can't think and if I can't think then I can't sad ;w;"
Sooo mainly extreme high energy stuff like Zaag Uptempo or Rawtempo, sometimes Tearout too. I should watch my tinnitus tho...
Producing music also is an insane mood helper since I feel like I can express myself way more with making music (or just noise sometimes).
ughghughuhguhg idk what but is
https://sc.bloat.cat/nocturnnne
https://sc.bloat.cat/computiegirl
https://sc.bloat.cat/phlebtek
etc similar there are more
Cool! Reminds me of Femtanyl.
idk femtanyl a bit too hard for me, but some are also cooool
Sort of, in a way lol. Damn hard to describe..
However, I tend to go for something alternative that gets me to focus on the music itself.
For example, The Death of Peace of Mind by Bad Omens is a go to album for me
I've been listening to the Sullivan King remix of Death of Piece of Mind all day today after remembering it from years ago, so really funny that I come across this today xD
Music that is within my Vocal range, but only just within my vocal range. That way I can sing along with it and sound feminine.
Lol that's so true…
Have you trained your voice to reach/settle an octave higher? Only asking because I haven't done HRT or voice training, and hearing myself sing an octave lower than my favorite female artists is not very inspiring. 😭 I do love to sing though, so I try to suppress such feelings with song xD
What do you sing btw? :D
Not person you replied to, but I've long enjoyed singing along with high pitched women. Always thought it was fun trying to hit some of the absurd highs you sometimes find from Hatsune Miku, for example. It doesn't sound good when I reach those notes, but at least the pitch ain't bad. I don't think that was the result of any intentional voice training (I'm not a singer and it would be another decade until my egg started cracking).
But yeah, singing along on-octave to female singers is something I like to do for dysphoria reasons. I've sometimes started trying to up-octave male singers as a way to practice more than just pure imitation, but I'm that takes more effort and usual I'm just chillin when listening to music. Also I listen to lots of music by trans creators.
Sic! Also, +1 for Hatsune Miku! :D
Honest question, but feel free to tell me to read up on my own: does HRT highten the voice pitch, change the timber or affect voice in any other way without voice training? Also, if the voice and/or vocal cords are in fact affected, does the "typical" male falsetto (or its range) transition into a more "typical" female like head voice? 🤔
I don't know too much about voice training tbh. I still sound like a guy and haven't really tried to voice train.
But estrogen does nothing to your voice. High T elongates the vocal chords, but the opposite doesn't happen unfortunately.
Nope, I only started HRT a couple of months ago to see if it was for me (it is but I need to delay my actual start for mostly unrelated medical reasons). I've not started actual voice training, I'm just pretty good at imitation. Which works great for singing but not as much for conversation.
I can actually pull off a decently feminine voice but it is always a character voice with a strong regional British accent. My own voice is much closer to RP English with a slight hint of BBC Scotland and some regional vocabulary from various places. So suddenly sounding like I'm from Larne, Birmingham, or Glasgow would be even more jarring than showing up speaking in a female voice.
At the moment I'm singing along to glory box by portishead , but I can't do that for long. My goal is to sing like Eivør, but that's a very long term goal.
I'm about to sleep now so I'll react to everything else tomorrow but OMFG EIVØR MENTIONED 😍😍😍😍😍
I know right? If I sounded half as good as eivør, I'd be the second best singer in the world.
No. I guess loud music that makes me stop thinking is the closest? But that's a side-effect.
Nostalgia vibes that can make me weepy? Sure.
Thank you for the quick respone! What is your best coping strategy? I don't know that I have one, other than trying to obfuscate the symptoms.
Feel absolutely free not to reply if you wouldn't want to share. That is also okay! 🩵
So a bit off-topic because I wouldn't describe it as alleviating dysphoria, but Chelsea Wolfe's latest album pretty much always make me cry and it feels super cathartic. Think it's primarily dealing with addiction, but I'm still amazed by how well it resonates with my experience. Especially 'Tunnel Lights' and 'Place In The Sun' make me tear up, the latter being really empowering.
Thank you for sharing 😊🩵
Hearing a good countertenor makes me feel very gender in a good way.
usually lo-fi music distracts me nicely
Ouff... To borrow @[email protected] 's word, lo-fi - while exquisite on its own - can make me too introspective, which in turn can weigh me down. 😩
But to each their own 🩵 share some tracks/artists?
I can't stop it so i lean in. I get furious that I have to bear it. Then i listen to hardcore. Expressing other feelings works.
Yeah this is me.
All coping strategies are valid. As are you. 🩵
That sound when you stick your head in the ocean. Okay its not technically music but it does genuinely help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMfPqeZjc2c
Without this, I have anxiety and cannot sleep, so I think I know what you mean.
Disintegration by the cure. Makes me focus on crying about other things :D
Holy crap.
Those are quite the production circumstances xD
Music is best when the musicians are high
tbh these production circumstances aren't that wild
sometimes After Laughter or This is Why by Paramore can help me feel more like myself, but most times music is better distraction than alleviation
for the best distraction I just listen to my all time faves: The Black Parade, American Idiot, 21st Century Breakdown, Selfish Machines, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, RIOT! etc. Punky loud and angry songs help a lot for me personally as you can see lol
Now THIS is music that makes me feel at home :)
For some reason, from me, Paramore tops all the others you mentioned :D it's absolute eargasm listening to After Laughter with my HiFi earphones 😍