Trans folks who knew somehing was up pre-puberty?

How do you explain the distress you felt as a kid wrt gender dysphoria stuff? Like, I've been trying to find words for it, but I have never been able to find words for that raw pain I always walked around with.

I can explain what it looked like, what I did to express that pain, but whenever I try to find words for it, I always fall up short? What words do you use to explain it to cis folks?

Like, I explain it as feeling like a trapped scared animal, knowing the clock is ticking, willing to tear your own leg off to get out of the trap but knowing that there is nothing you can do to prevent what is going to happen to you.

So every night you go to sleep and pray to a god who you're pretty sure isn't listening to let you wake up a girl or not wake up at all and you know that your patience there is wearing thin so you're gonna just do it yourself and you're fucking 9 and why are you dealing with this

And then you're 12 and boys are starting to change and you're not a dope maybe if you crush them this won't happen to you, and your parents are officially worried now even though you know they know what's wrong

and they've known ever since you stomped away inconsolable at age 6 when you saw your ma changing your sister and you insisted she was broken and then put 2 and 2 together and realized you weren't gonna grow up to be like her.

And your 14 and things haven't quiet started yet, but you know it's around the corner and your ma loves telling everyone how you use to be such a happy kid but one day you stopped smiling and you know why and so does she, but we're not talking about it, ok?

And you're counting the days til 18 cause you've got what you need to do figured out and it's gonna suck and that black pit keeps pulling you down. The first hair on your face. Your voice going down.

And you're 16 and counting the days and you've refused to cut your hair and your uncle sneaks up behind you while your sitting at the kitchen table and grabs your hair and makes a *snip* sound thinking it's funny and you vomit all over the table. Everyone thinks it's funny.

And I can say all that but none of that explains how it feels. That abject terror. The hatred of what your body is doing to you. The rather being dead than this. It's like you're slowly burning to death and everyone just sits there thinking you're just a weird kid.