Dysphoria: What the Term Means, How It Differs from Depression and When to Seek Help

A colleague once described a Sunday evening this way: nothing had gone wrong, the house was quiet, dinner was fine, and yet she felt as if she were wearing a coat two sizes too small over her own skin. She was not sad, exactly. She was not anxious about Monday. The word she eventually landed on, after a long pause, was wrong.

Most of us have brushed against that feeling. It sits somewhere between restlessness and grief, and it resists the tidy labels we usually reach for. Clinicians have a name for it: dysphoria. The term shows up in psychiatry textbooks, in conversations about gender identity, in the small print of hormone research and, increasingly, in social media captions where it gets stretched to cover almost any bad afternoon.

That stretching matters. Because dysphoria can be a passing weather system or the front edge of something that needs care, knowing what the word actually means, and how it differs from depression, is worth the twenty minutes this article asks of you.

What is dysphoria? The word behind the feeling

Dysphoria comes from Greek roots that translate roughly as “hard to bear.” Its mirror image is a word almost everyone knows: euphoria, the sense that everything is light and right. Dysphoria is the opposite weather, a pervasive feeling of unease, dissatisfaction or discomfort with oneself or one’s circumstances.

Notice what that definition does not say. It does not specify a cause. It does not set a duration. It does not require tears, hopelessness or any particular thought pattern. Dysphoria is a description of how a person feels, in the same way “fever” describes a raised temperature without telling you whether the culprit is a virus, an infection or a hot afternoon.

Clinicians use the term deliberately because of that neutrality. A dysphoric mood can appear in depression, in bipolar disorder, in anxiety, in the aftermath of a traumatic event, during hormonal shifts across the menstrual cycle, and in people whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. The same word applies across all of them, which is useful for doctors and confusing for everyone else.

The dysphoria meaning people search for online usually splits into two intentions. Some want to understand a mood they cannot name. Others have encountered the phrase “gender dysphoria” and want to know what it involves. Both are covered here, and the distinction between the general feeling and the specific clinical uses is the thread that runs through the rest of this piece.

What does it mean to feel dysphoria?

Ask ten people to describe dysphoria and you will hear ten different metaphors. A wrong-fitting coat. Static on a radio. Standing outside your own life looking in through a window. The common ground is a sense of mismatch: between how things are and how they should be, between the body and the self, between the moment and the mood.

Physically, dysphoria often carries a restlessness that plain sadness lacks. People describe an itch they cannot locate, irritability that surprises them, a wish to be somewhere else without knowing where. Others feel flat and heavy rather than agitated. Both patterns count. What defines the experience is the quality of unease, not whether the person is moving fast or slow.

Duration varies enormously. A dysphoric hour after an argument is a normal human response and resolves on its own. A dysphoric mood that colors every morning for weeks is a different animal, and that difference in time and reach is exactly what separates a feeling from a condition worth assessing.

There is also a difference between dysphoria and ordinary bad moods that matters clinically. A bad mood usually has a target: the traffic, the email, the weather. Dysphoria tends to feel untethered. The person can list reasons but senses that none of them fully explain the feeling. That untethered quality is one reason it can be unsettling, and one reason people delay talking about it. They cannot point to a cause, so they assume they have no right to complain.

Dysphoric mood vs depression: where they overlap and where they part

Here is the distinction most people are really asking about. Depression is a clinical condition; dysphoria is one of its possible ingredients. Every episode of major depression involves a persistently low or dysphoric mood, but not every dysphoric mood is depression.

The National Institute of Mental Health describes depression as symptoms present most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks, and severe enough to interfere with work, sleep, eating or enjoying life. The Mayo Clinic lists the recognizable cluster: loss of interest in things that used to bring pleasure, sleep that is too little or too much, fatigue, changes in appetite, difficulty concentrating, feelings of worthlessness, and in some people thoughts of death. Dysphoria on its own does not require any of those companions.

Feature	Dysphoria (the feeling)	Major depression (the condition)
What it is	A symptom or mood state	A diagnosable disorder
Typical duration	Minutes to weeks; variable	At least two weeks, most of the day, nearly every day
Loss of pleasure	May or may not be present	A core feature
Sleep, appetite, energy changes	Not required	Common and part of assessment
Possible contexts	Depression, anxiety, bipolar states, PMDD, gender dysphoria, grief, stress	Depressive disorders
Who names it	The person, or a clinician describing a mood	A clinician, after assessment

Think of it as the difference between “cough” and “pneumonia.” A cough can accompany pneumonia, a cold or a dusty attic. Nobody would treat the word cough as a diagnosis, and dysphoria deserves the same restraint.

Is dysphoria itself a diagnosis?

Not on its own. You will not leave a clinician’s office with “dysphoria” written as a standalone condition, because the word describes a mood rather than a disorder. What you may hear instead is a diagnosis in which dysphoria plays a defined role, or a note that your mood is dysphoric while the cause is still being worked out.

Three diagnostic terms in mainstream use contain the word, and each means something specific. Gender dysphoria refers to distress arising from a mismatch between a person’s gender identity and the sex they were assigned at birth. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder describes severe mood and physical symptoms locked to the menstrual cycle. And clinicians speak of a dysphoric mood when documenting the emotional tone of depression, anxiety or a mixed bipolar state.

Why does this matter to a reader rather than a coder of medical records? Because it changes what you should expect from a consultation. If you go in saying “I think I have dysphoria,” a good clinician will not argue with the word. They will ask when it started, how long it lasts, what else travels with it, and whether it follows any pattern. The goal is not to label the feeling but to find out what it is attached to.

A practical consequence follows. Online quizzes that promise to tell you whether you “have dysphoria” are answering the wrong question. Almost everyone experiences dysphoria at some point. The useful questions are about frequency, intensity, duration and impact, and those need a conversation, not a checkbox.

What is gender dysphoria?

Gender dysphoria is the term clinicians use for the distress a person may feel when their gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. The Mayo Clinic notes that a diagnosis requires this distress to have lasted at least six months and to cause significant difficulty in daily life, whether at school, at work or in relationships. Both the NHS and the Mayo Clinic are careful to make a point often lost in public debate: having a gender identity that differs from the sex recorded at birth is not itself an illness. The diagnosis concerns the distress, not the identity.

That distress can take several forms. Some people describe a strong discomfort with physical characteristics such as voice, chest or facial hair. Others experience it most sharply in social settings, when being addressed by a name or pronoun that does not fit. Many describe a persistent sense that their body and their internal sense of self are pulling in different directions, which is the same “mismatch” quality that defines dysphoria in general, applied to gender specifically.

The NHS describes gender dysphoria as something that can appear in childhood, adolescence or adulthood, and emphasizes that experiences vary widely from one person to the next. Not everyone whose gender identity differs from their assigned sex experiences dysphoria, and among those who do, intensity ranges from mild and occasional to severe and constant.

Care, where sought, is individualized and typically begins with assessment by clinicians experienced in this area, often including psychological support. Decisions about any further steps rest with the person and their clinical team, and this article deliberately stays on the side of definition rather than treatment. The point here is narrower: gender dysphoria is a well-described clinical concept, it is about distress rather than identity, and it deserves the same evidence-based, respectful approach as any other health concern.

Dysphoria vs dysmorphia: two words that get tangled

Search engines are full of the phrase “gender dysmorphia,” which is not a recognized medical term. The confusion is understandable. Both words start with the same three letters and both involve distress connected to the body. They describe very different things.

Dysmorphia, in clinical use, refers to body dysmorphic disorder. The NHS describes it as a mental health condition in which a person spends a great deal of time worrying about perceived flaws in their appearance, flaws that are usually invisible or minor to others. The worry is intrusive and repetitive; people may check mirrors constantly, seek reassurance, compare themselves to others or avoid social situations. The distress centers on the belief that a specific feature looks wrong or ugly.

Dysphoria, by contrast, is not about perceived ugliness. A person with gender dysphoria does not necessarily think their body is flawed in an aesthetic sense. The distress arises from the body not matching who they know themselves to be. Someone can have a perfectly ordinary opinion of their appearance and still experience profound dysphoria.

A simple way to hold the distinction: dysmorphia asks “is this part of me defective?” while dysphoria asks “is this me at all?” The first is a distortion of perception; the second is a conflict of identity or a pervasive mood state.

Why insist on the difference? Because the two are assessed and supported differently, and because using the wrong word can lead people toward information that does not apply to them. If you have been searching for “dysmorphia” but the descriptions of appearance-focused worry do not fit your experience, dysphoria may be the term you actually need.

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder: when dysphoria runs on a cycle

Some dysphoria keeps a calendar. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, usually shortened to PMDD, is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome in which mood symptoms dominate. The Mayo Clinic describes symptoms that appear in the week or two before a period and ease within a few days after bleeding starts. The pattern is the diagnostic clue: irritability, marked sadness, anxiety, tension and a sense of being overwhelmed that arrive predictably and depart just as predictably.

What separates PMDD from ordinary premenstrual moodiness is intensity and impact. People describe feeling like a different person for part of each month, with conflict in relationships, difficulty functioning at work and, for some, thoughts of self-harm during the worst days. The Mayo Clinic notes that PMDD and premenstrual syndrome share many physical symptoms, such as bloating, breast tenderness and fatigue, but in PMDD the emotional symptoms are severe enough to disrupt daily life.

The mechanism is thought to involve an unusual sensitivity to normal hormonal fluctuations rather than abnormal hormone levels themselves. In other words, the hormones are doing what they always do; the brain’s response to those shifts is what differs. Research in this area is ongoing and the picture is not complete, so it is fairer to say the evidence points toward sensitivity than to declare the question settled.

Tracking is the most useful first step a person can take. Two or three cycles of daily notes on mood, energy and physical symptoms, lined up against the calendar, give a clinician far more to work with than a single description of a bad week. If the dysphoric days cluster reliably before a period and lift afterward, that pattern itself is informative. If they do not, another explanation is more likely.

Where else does a dysphoric mood show up?

Dysphoria is promiscuous. It attaches itself to a wide range of conditions, which is exactly why it cannot serve as a diagnosis on its own.

In bipolar disorder, clinicians describe “mixed” states in which features of elevated energy and low mood coexist. A person may feel agitated, sped-up and irritable while also feeling hopeless. That combination is intensely dysphoric and can be more distressing than either pole alone, because the person has the energy of a high with the emotional content of a low.

Anxiety disorders frequently carry dysphoria as a passenger. The tension, dread and sense that something is wrong overlap heavily with how people describe dysphoric moods, and many people meet criteria for both anxiety and depression at once.

Grief, particularly in its early months, is often dysphoric without being depression. The bereaved person may feel unmoored and restless rather than simply sad. Most grief eases over time without treatment, though a minority of people develop a prolonged, disabling form that does benefit from professional support.

Substance withdrawal is another common source. When the brain has adapted to a substance and that substance is removed, a period of low mood, irritability and unease is typical. This is a physiological response rather than a character flaw, and it usually improves as the body readjusts.

Chronic pain, chronic illness, sleep deprivation and major life transitions round out the list. The lesson from this variety is not to memorize it but to hold onto the principle: a dysphoric mood is a signal to look for a cause, and the cause may be medical, psychological, situational or some blend of all three.

What is happening in the brain and body during dysphoria?

Nobody has drawn a complete wiring diagram of dysphoria, and this article will not pretend otherwise. What the evidence does support is a picture of several systems that influence mood and can tip it toward unease.

Sleep is the most robust of these. Even a single night of poor sleep measurably worsens mood regulation the following day, and chronic short sleep is strongly associated with irritability and low mood. Many people who describe persistent dysphoria are, on closer questioning, also describing months of fractured sleep.

The stress response is a second contributor. When the body’s stress hormones stay elevated for long periods, the systems that regulate mood and reward function differently. That is one reason prolonged stress and dysphoria travel together so often, and why addressing the stressor sometimes lifts the mood more effectively than addressing the mood directly.

Hormonal shifts across the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, the months after childbirth and the transition to menopause are well-documented windows for mood change. As noted in the PMDD section, the emerging view is that individual sensitivity to normal fluctuations matters more than the absolute hormone levels.

Neurotransmitter systems involved in mood, motivation and reward are implicated across depression, anxiety and related conditions. The old “chemical imbalance” shorthand has largely been retired because it oversimplifies; researchers now describe networks and circuits rather than a single molecule in short supply. What remains solid is that these systems can be influenced by sleep, physical activity, social connection, psychological therapy and, where a clinician judges appropriate, medication.

The honest summary is that dysphoria has biology, but that biology is entangled with circumstance. Treating it as purely one or the other misses half the picture.

How clinicians tell dysphoria apart from depression

A skilled assessment for a persistent dysphoric mood looks less like a checklist and more like a careful interview. Four questions do most of the work.

How long, and how much of the day? The two-week, most-of-the-day threshold described by the National Institute of Mental Health for depression is not arbitrary. It separates a mood that comes and goes from one that has settled in. A person whose dysphoria lifts reliably each evening or on weekends is telling the clinician something important about pattern.

What travels with it? Loss of interest in previously enjoyable activities is the companion symptom clinicians weigh most heavily. If the dysphoria arrives with disrupted sleep, appetite change, fatigue and difficulty concentrating, depression moves up the list. If it arrives alone, other explanations rise.

Does it follow a rhythm? Dysphoria tied to the menstrual cycle, to a season, to a specific setting or to a particular relationship points in different directions than dysphoria that is constant regardless of context.

What else is going on? Thyroid function, anemia, sleep disorders, pain and certain medications can all produce a low or dysphoric mood. A thorough clinician will often check for physical contributors before settling on a psychological explanation, and a basic blood panel is a common part of that process.

The outcome of this conversation is rarely a single word. More often it is a working formulation: “a dysphoric mood that appears to be part of a depressive episode,” or “dysphoria strongly linked to premenstrual timing,” or “a mood consistent with grief, to be reviewed in a few months.” Those formulations guide what happens next far better than a label would.

What genuinely helps in the moment?

None of what follows is a cure, and none of it replaces assessment for persistent symptoms. What these strategies share is a reasonable evidence base for nudging mood and a low risk of harm, which makes them sensible first moves while you decide whether to seek help.

Movement is the best-supported. Regular physical activity is associated with improved mood across a wide range of studies, and the effect does not require athleticism. A brisk twenty-minute walk counts. The mechanism appears to involve both direct effects on brain chemistry and indirect effects on sleep, stress and self-perception.

Protecting sleep comes next. Consistent wake times, a wind-down period without screens and a cool, dark room are unglamorous and effective. Because dysphoria and poor sleep feed each other, breaking that loop from the sleep side is often easier than breaking it from the mood side.

Naming the feeling has a small but real effect. Putting a precise word to an emotion, a practice psychologists call affect labeling, tends to reduce its intensity slightly. This is one reason the vocabulary in this article matters beyond trivia: being able to say “I feel dysphoric, restless and disconnected” gives the feeling edges.

Social contact, even brief and low-effort, counters the isolation that dysphoria encourages. A text to a friend, a shared meal, a phone call. The instinct during a dysphoric mood is often to withdraw, and gently resisting that instinct is one of the more reliable self-help moves available.

Finally, limiting alcohol and other substances during dysphoric periods matters, because the short-term relief they offer is typically followed by a deeper dip.

What does treatment look like when dysphoria is part of a condition?

When a clinician determines that dysphoria is part of depression, an anxiety disorder, PMDD or another diagnosable condition, treatment follows the guidance for that condition rather than for dysphoria in isolation. The broad options are consistent across mainstream guidelines.

Psychological therapy is a first-line approach for many mood conditions. Cognitive behavioral therapy works on the loop between thoughts, feelings and behavior; interpersonal therapy focuses on relationships and role transitions; behavioral activation targets the withdrawal and inactivity that deepen low mood. Evidence supports each for depression, and therapy is often the preferred starting point for mild to moderate symptoms.

Medication is an option that a prescribing clinician may discuss for moderate to severe depression, for PMDD and for some other conditions. Rather than name any, it is more useful to understand the general shape: medicines that act on mood-related brain systems typically take several weeks to show their full effect, may involve a period of adjustment, and are usually reviewed regularly. Whether medication is appropriate, which kind and for how long are decisions for the individual and their prescriber, informed by symptom severity, history and preference.

For gender dysphoria specifically, care is highly individualized and begins with assessment and psychological support by clinicians experienced in the field. The NHS and the Mayo Clinic both describe a range of possible supports and emphasize that the path differs from person to person. This article stays out of the specifics deliberately; those conversations belong between a person and their clinical team.

Across all of these, the unifying principle is that dysphoria is treated by addressing what it is attached to. Naming the mood is the beginning of that process, not the end.

When should you see a doctor about dysphoria?

A dysphoric evening does not need a clinic. A dysphoric month does. The threshold most guidelines use is about persistence and impact: if a low, uneasy or disconnected mood has lasted around two weeks or more, is present most days, and is affecting your sleep, work, relationships or ability to enjoy anything, that is a reasonable point to book an appointment. You do not need to have figured out the cause first. Working that out is the clinician’s job.

Some situations should not wait for the two-week mark. Seek help promptly, the same day where possible, if you or someone you know is experiencing any of the following:

• Thoughts of suicide, self-harm or not wanting to be alive, even if they feel vague or passing
• A sudden, dramatic change in behavior, such as reckless actions, agitation that will not settle or withdrawing from everyone
• Dysphoria accompanied by confusion, hallucinations or beliefs that others find hard to follow
• Inability to eat, drink or care for basic needs
• A mood crisis in someone who has recently stopped a substance they used heavily

In the United States, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text around the clock. In an immediate emergency, call your local emergency number or go to the nearest emergency department.

Two further situations deserve an earlier conversation than most people give them. If dysphoria follows a monthly pattern severe enough to disrupt your life, a clinician can help you track and interpret it. And if you are experiencing distress related to gender identity, particularly if it is affecting your daily functioning or wellbeing, speaking with a primary care clinician is an appropriate and confidential first step.

The people who fare worst with persistent dysphoria are rarely those who sought help too early.

How to support someone who is experiencing dysphoria

When someone you love describes feeling wrong, disconnected or uneasy without a clear reason, the temptation is to solve it. Resist that for the first few minutes. Dysphoria is often accompanied by a sense that the feeling is illegitimate because it lacks an obvious cause, and being met with a list of fixes can confirm that fear.

Start by taking the feeling seriously without amplifying it. “That sounds hard. Tell me more about what it’s like” opens the door. “But your life is great” or “everyone feels like that sometimes” closes it, even when meant kindly. The person already knows their life looks fine from outside; that is part of what makes the mood confusing.

Ask about pattern rather than cause. When does it feel worst? Is there any time it lifts? Has it been going on for days or months? These questions are more useful than “why do you think you feel this way,” which puts the person on the spot to justify an experience they may not understand.

Watch for the companions that suggest something more than a mood. Changes in sleep, appetite, energy or interest in usual activities are worth naming gently: “I’ve noticed you haven’t been sleeping. Is that connected?” If the person mentions thoughts of not wanting to be around, take it seriously, ask directly whether they are thinking about harming themselves, and help them reach support that day. Asking does not plant the idea; the evidence consistently shows it does the opposite.

For gender dysphoria specifically, the single most useful thing a friend or family member can do is listen, use the name and pronouns the person asks for, and avoid turning their experience into a debate. Respect, in this context, is not a political position. It is basic care.

Finally, offer to help with logistics. Booking an appointment, driving to it, sitting in the waiting room. Dysphoria saps initiative, and practical support often matters more than the perfect words.

Dysphoria myths worth retiring

A few misconceptions about dysphoria do real damage, mostly by delaying help or by pushing people toward the wrong information.

“Dysphoria is just a fancy word for sadness.” Sadness is one flavor of dysphoria, but the term covers restlessness, irritability, disconnection and unease that may involve no sadness at all. Someone can feel dysphoric while being irritable and agitated, which is why it sometimes gets missed by people looking only for tears.

“If you can’t explain why, it isn’t real.” Many dysphoric moods lack an identifiable trigger. That is a characteristic of the experience, not evidence against it. Clinicians assess mood by duration, intensity and impact, none of which require a cause.

“Dysphoria always means depression.” It can be part of depression. It can also belong to anxiety, grief, hormonal cycles, sleep deprivation, physical illness or gender-related distress. Assuming depression skips the assessment that would actually identify the source.

“Gender dysphoria means someone is mentally ill.” Both the NHS and the Mayo Clinic are explicit that a gender identity differing from the sex assigned at birth is not a mental illness. The diagnosis concerns distress, and the goal of care is to reduce that distress.

“Dysphoria and dysmorphia are the same thing.” They are not, and the difference has practical consequences for what kind of support fits. Dysmorphia involves preoccupation with a perceived flaw in appearance; dysphoria involves pervasive unease or a sense of mismatch, without any necessary belief that one is ugly.

The pattern in these myths is a rush to simplify. Dysphoria resists simplification, and the most evidence-based stance is also the most humane one: take the feeling seriously, look carefully for what it is attached to, and let the answer guide what comes next.

Frequently asked questions

What does dysphoria mean?

Dysphoria means a state of deep unease, dissatisfaction or distress; the word comes from Greek roots meaning roughly “hard to bear” and is the opposite of euphoria. It describes a mood rather than a specific illness. Clinicians use it across many conditions, including depression, anxiety, premenstrual dysphoric disorder and gender dysphoria, to capture a pervasive feeling that something is wrong without specifying the cause.

What is dysphoria vs depression?

Dysphoria is a mood state; depression is a clinical disorder that includes a dysphoric or low mood as one of its core features. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, depression involves symptoms most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks, typically with loss of interest, sleep and appetite changes and difficulty concentrating. Dysphoria alone can be brief and situational and does not require those accompanying symptoms.

What is gender dysphoria?

Gender dysphoria is the distress a person may experience when their gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. The Mayo Clinic notes that a diagnosis involves distress lasting at least six months that significantly affects daily life. Both the NHS and the Mayo Clinic stress that having a gender identity that differs from assigned sex is not a mental illness; the diagnosis concerns the distress, and care is individualized.

What is dysphoria vs dysmorphia?

Dysphoria is pervasive unease or a sense of mismatch between how things are and how they should be; dysmorphia, in clinical use, refers to body dysmorphic disorder, a preoccupation with perceived flaws in appearance that others usually cannot see. Someone with dysphoria does not necessarily believe their body is ugly. “Gender dysmorphia” is not a recognized medical term; the correct phrase is gender dysphoria.

What does it mean to feel dysphoria?

Feeling dysphoria typically means experiencing a persistent sense of wrongness, restlessness or disconnection that is hard to pin to a single cause. People describe it as static, an ill-fitting coat or watching their own life through a window. It may involve irritability and agitation or heaviness and flatness. The defining quality is unease rather than sadness alone, and it can last minutes or persist for weeks.

Is a dysphoric mood the same as a bad mood?

Not quite. A bad mood usually has a clear target, such as a frustrating commute or a difficult conversation, and passes once the trigger fades. A dysphoric mood tends to feel untethered; the person can list reasons but senses none of them fully explain the feeling. Brief dysphoria is a normal human experience, but a dysphoric mood that persists for around two weeks or more and affects daily functioning is worth discussing with a clinician.

What is premenstrual dysphoric disorder?

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome in which mood symptoms such as marked irritability, sadness, anxiety and feeling overwhelmed dominate. The Mayo Clinic describes symptoms appearing in the week or two before a period and easing within a few days after bleeding begins. The disruption to relationships and daily life is what separates PMDD from ordinary premenstrual moodiness, and tracking symptoms across several cycles helps confirm the pattern.

Can physical health problems cause dysphoria?

Yes. Thyroid disorders, anemia, sleep disorders, chronic pain, chronic illness and some medications can all produce a low or dysphoric mood. This is why a clinician assessing persistent dysphoria will often ask about physical symptoms and may order basic blood tests before settling on a psychological explanation. Substance withdrawal is another common physiological source of temporary dysphoria that usually improves as the body readjusts.

How long does dysphoria last?

It depends entirely on what it is attached to. Situational dysphoria after an argument or a hard day may last hours. Dysphoria within grief often eases over months. In premenstrual dysphoric disorder it follows a monthly cycle, arriving before a period and lifting within days of bleeding. When it forms part of depression, it persists most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks and typically needs support to resolve.

When should I see a doctor about dysphoria?

See a clinician if a dysphoric mood has lasted around two weeks or more, is present most days and is affecting sleep, work, relationships or your ability to enjoy anything. Seek help the same day if you have thoughts of self-harm or suicide, sudden dramatic behavior changes, confusion or hallucinations, or cannot manage basic self-care. In the United States, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available around the clock by call or text.

References

• NHS – Gender dysphoria
• National Institute of Mental Health (NIH) – Depression
• NHS – Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD)

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor about your individual situation.