As usual, I went to the gym today without my pocket bra or breast forms. I prefer to shower right after working out, but I’m still too conscious about not passing to make the switch to the women’s changing room, so I was boymoding as usual. To be honest, it’s been making me depressed lately that I have to boymode like that so frequently during the week, but that’s a different can of worms.

Going back to today, after showering and then drying and reshaping my fem haircut (small win), I started driving home. It’s a route I’ve taken a billion times, so everything was nice and relaxed.

Until my mind went to the goddamn seatbelt across my chest.

My chest. Yes, the flat fucking plain of nothing. I’ve had these chest dysphoria episodes before, but usually in the morning after waking up when my mind has nowhere else to go until I kick myself out of bed. This time, I was way more than preoccupied, behind the wheel with cars ahead and in front of me. But did my brain care? No. It narrowed my focus entirely on my washboard of a torso, and before I knew it I was breathing funny and wanting to take my hands off the wheel and bring them to my chest. Why? To find my missing boobs? Hell if my desperate mind will ever let me know what was going on there.

I was lucky that it was late evening and so the roads weren’t too busy. And the route itself was pretty short. Long story short, I survived, and when I got home and finally put my bra + breast forms back on I breathed the biggest damn sigh of relief.

Lesson learned: dysphoria can and will seize you at the worst possible moments.