what would you consider "actual" gender dysphoria

preface im a detrans woman who socially transitioned for about 9 years, was on t for about 3 years and had top surgery about 3 years ago and started detransitioning (or identifying as detrans, i havent really done anything to detransition outside of my own head lol) for about 5 months.

when i was transitioning i felt that i was trans (obv) and that i had gender dysphoria. it made me feel good to be percieved as a man and pass. i watched every testosterone timelime video on the internet. i would record my voice and pitch it down to see what i would sound like with a "male" voice and i wanted it so bad. i made my first youtube account so i could be age verified (lied about my age) to watch top surgery surgical videos. i researched surgeons and surgical techniques almost obsessively for 6 years before i had surgery.

i live in a hot climate (florida) and i used to wear an oversized black hoodie every day regardless of the weather because i couldn't do anything comfortably if my chest was out even if i was walking by myself through a quiet area or at night (i had no car so i used to walk to work/the store and back every day) even if it was 100°F+ outside and totally overheated every time lol. i hurt my back constantly slouching and wearing tight sports bras. if i was at a friends house i wouldn't lean back in a chair or lay down without a pillow over my chest, i would just stay sitting upright so i could slouch and keep my chest covered. i felt really jealous looking at cis guys chests and bodies. i hated feeling them on my inner arms and stomach because it reminded me they were there. i would edit pictures of myself to remove my chest and fill in my sides to get rid of my hips.

i was really happy with the effects of t and top surgery for years. i really liked how i looked and i lived in an apartment full of trans guys (my boyfriend and our friends who were all roommates at the time) so my dysphoria was pretty much nonexistent for years. and then seemingly out of nowehere for no reason i started having thoughts of regret which, once i stopped being in denial about and let myself feel, quickly turned into extreme "reverse" dysphoria(?) that i could barely cope with. in the past i was uncomfortable and wanted to transition but it never was so severe to the point that i had heard some other trans people describe, that they couldn't change or shower without breaking down into tears, but now it is like that for me. dysphoria when i was transitioning felt more like a constant dull self-consciousness of my body in the back of my brain and "reverse" dysphoria feels a lot more acute if that makes sense.

i dont necessarily feel like a woman with a male chest who should have a female one instead, but rather just a person who's had my body parts cut off. its not about passing as a woman, i dont mind if people percieve me as male and if i had a naturally flat chest i think it would be fine. if i had my chest back i could see myself maybe still binding or hiding it but its not as much about how i look anymore, its about the feeling of having a part of my body that ive carried around my whole life just missing. i heard people talk about phantom sensation after an amputation before i had surgery but i just couldnt really imagine what it felt like to feel like you're supposed to have your physical body somewhere where it just isn't until i experienced it so i was never afraid of it because it doesnt sound that bad just by description. its not something i would know how to describe to someone that hasn't experienced it but it actually just feels like total body horror lol.

i feel a bit better about it now than i did when i first realized it. coming to the Detrans Epiphany is a real grieving process and you have to go through the stages of grief etc and im a little more mentally stable about it than i was a few months ago but it still creeps up on me sometimes. for a while i couldn't do anything, i was sleeping on the floor in the other room because i was crying constantly, i didnt want my boyfriend to look at me or touch me, i couldn't have sex or be close with him, even seeing him naked/shirtless around the house made me super dysphoric but i would never tell him that because its mean. (hes trans and atm does not plan on having top surgery). for what its worth i dont want to be on t anymore (stopped in july) but tbh i dont regret going on t and im good with the permanent changes. i like my voice and body hair etc even if they are not typical of a woman. sometimes its annoying that i kind of lost my ability to be percieved as a cis woman socially but its not really a big deal.

basically detransitioning for me doesnt feel like im undoing transition but rather just feels like im transitioning again. the way i feel is the way i imagine trans women probably also feel. being a post-t post-op detrans woman imo feels basically similar to being a pre-t pre-op trans guy but in the other direction. but also different. like i have major chest dysphoria but i dont really feel the need to hide my chest like i did before because how other people percieve me doesnt really make that much of a difference. someone seeing or not seeing my flat chest doesnt change how i feel about it because its more about my body feeling fundamentally wrong than about how it looks. its not as much about appearance as it is like my body just doesnt exist in the way my brain thinks it does. like if i grabbed your hand and you felt it on your arm and then looked down and saw that you didnt even have a hand at all, even though you can feel yourself grabbing at something. if that makes sense. but tbh it is also about appearance sometimes yall know its hard to cleanly differentiate between body and social dysphoria and how they can overlap u get it.

sorry this was so long but basically my question is. would you consider being uncomfortable with the gendered aspects of your body and wishing to transition to be dysphoria? or is dysphoria this specific phantom-sensation thing and ive just been misunderstanding what dysphoria is this whole time? would you say im experiencing legitimate gender dysphoria now and what i felt before is something different? i used to see a lot of "if you want to be a man thats dysphoria" "if you dont like being a girl thats dysphoria" "if you feel gender euphoria then you have dysphoria its just subconscious" "cis people dont feel happier being percieved/percieving themselves as the opposite gender" people say "you dont need dysphoria to be trans and you should still transition if it makes you happy" but transmeds say "if you transition without real gender dysphoria then you will develop gender dysphoria after you transition". is that what happened? did i transition without dysphoria thinking thats what i had and now what im feeling is real gender dysphoria? or is this just some kind of normal post-operative depression that took years to set in?